When the Oak Ridge High School newspaper published results of a poll showing most students supported Barack Obama, an advertiser called to cancel her ad.
"She called us a 'Communist publication,' " said Janice White, the paper's faculty advisor.
White has advised the Oak Ridge student newspaper for four years and the yearbook for 13 years with the support of a principal who values the role of a free press.
Fortunately, she said.
Teachers throughout California who advise student journalists have been reassigned – or dismissed – for what has appeared in their newspapers. Effective today, however, they'll have a measure of protection.
Senate Bill 1370, which goes into effect today prohibits a school employee from being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred or otherwise retaliated against for acting to protect a student's speech.
During the past two years, civil libertarians and First Amendment advocates have documented 16 instances of faculty advisers being disciplined for content in a student newspaper.
"We haven't seen this occur anywhere else in the country," Jim Ewert, legal counsel with the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said of the number of cases.
Ewert's organization was one of several – including the California Teachers Association and the California Labor Federation – that supported the bill by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.
"Allowing a school administration to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog and bring sunshine to the actions of school administrators," Yee said in a press release.
In 2006, Yee wrote legislation making California the first state to prohibit censorship of student press by administrators and to protect students from being disciplined for engaging in speech or press activities.
Yee spokesman Adam Keigwin said some school administrators "realized they could still go after the faculty."
The new bill is meant to close that loophole.
"California just happens to have some of the best student journalism programs in the country and where the more substantive and aggressive journalism is, that's where administrators crack down," said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Virginia.
"My job is to defend the right of self-expression by my students," said White of Oak Ridge, which is in El Dorado Hills. "This piece of legislation allows me to do that."
Karl Grubaugh, journalism adviser at Granite Bay High School and a part-time Bee copy editor, said he hasn't had any problem with administrators in 10 years, but he is concerned about the vulnerability of untenured teachers.
"The bigger issue is people who can lose their jobs in their first two years of teaching. They can be dismissed without cause and are more susceptible to pressure," he said.
The average tenure of the state's high school newspaper advisers, Grubaugh said, is less than three years.
Call The Bee's Walter Yost, (916) 321-1146.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.