A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a California community college violated the constitutional rights of a group of conservative students when it ordered the removal of flyers listing the death toll of communism.

The panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Clovis Community College had illegally removed flyers that supported freedom and highlighted the death toll of communism. The flyers were posted by members of the Clovis chapter of Young America's Foundation, Alejandro Flores, Daniel Flores, and Juliette Colunga.

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The college's president, Lori Bennett, had ordered the flyers removed, citing a previously unpublished rule that said flyers had to "double as club announcements."

Internal emails revealed that Bennett had fabricated the reason specifically in response to the group's flyers, telling a subordinate, "If you need a reason, you can let them know that [we] agreed they aren’t club announcements."

The latest ruling affirmed a lower court ruling last year that said Clovis's policy was "facially overbroad under the First Amendment and unconstitutionally vague under the Fourteenth Amendment." The students were represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

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"Clovis tried again to justify its censorship, but the court saw through its flawed arguments,” Daniel Ortner, an attorney for FIRE, said of the appellate court's ruling. "The panel’s decision shows what we’ve argued all along: Clovis’s flyer policy is overbroad, vague, and indefensible in a court of law.”

The Washington Examiner has reached out to Clovis Community College for comment.