Additional Freedom of Press Protections for Students at California High Schools and Colleges Appears Headed to Governor’s Desk

California, however, has a legislative history of going above and beyond in protecting students’ free speech and free speech activities in public education. Despite existing State laws that protect students’ speech, this bill addresses the unnerving reports of educators, ranging from high school to college level, being dismissed from their roles as journalism instructors for protecting pupils in their exercise of otherwise protected speech. In some instances, educators have been fired for refusing to remove students’ stories from school publications.

“This isn’t about obscenity, or libel, or anything like that. This is about students writing about the quality of their bathrooms or their assemblies,” said Adam J. Keigwin, Communications Director for Senator Yee. “Student press is like the watchdog of school administration.”

The California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA), sponsoring the bill, commented in the bill’s analysis that “if journalism advisors fear retaliation from school administrators, they obviously cannot effectively teach and instill the importance of freedom of speech in their students.”

The California School Boards Association (CSBA) argues in opposition that the bill is too broad in extending protection to any school employee, and not just Journalism teachers. In a letter to the chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, CSBA expressed concern that the bill would “impede a school administrator’s response to possible confrontations between students due to provocative speech or behavior.”

CSBA also claimed in the letter that the bill would give a “formally recognized legal defense” to any teacher acting with “poor judgment” and make it “difficult to reassign a journalism teacher who is not performing in accordance with academic requirements”.

Keigwin said the bill necessarily should be broad. He evidenced one situation at a college campus in which “campus police and custodians were told by administrators to remove student newspapers from news stands.” He commented that no employee should be put in the position “to either break the law by censoring students’ speech, or risk retaliation from their bosses, the administration.”

In responding to the claim that administrators will lose their ability to maintain a safe and quality education due to sweeping protections under the bill, Jim Ewert of CSPA said, “the bill has been amended to be narrowly focused on protecting teachers who are defending the otherwise protected speech of students.”

Ewert said the bill still allows for administrators to have oversight regarding curriculum and the performance of teachers. The bill only protects teachers in the case of a student’s speech, and only then when the speech is constitutionally protected.

“On the one hand, educators are trying to teach students the principles of free speech and expression. Yet on the other hand, administrators are going around and arbitrarily shutting down those educators for encouraging their students to write and have a voice,” said Sandra Jackson, Assistant Manager of Communications for the California Teachers Association (CTA). Jackson commented that any arbitrary punishment of teachers without “the due process of a hearing or investigation is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable.”

Jackson further commented that to remove an educator from their place within a journalism program simply because a school administration doesn’t like what a student has to write “is an abuse of administrative power.”

On behalf of CTA Jackson said that while California Education Codes specifically protect the free speech of students, teachers should be afforded those same rights in their instruction of developing student journalists. She said, “You should applaud students when they speak and take a stance, not punish the teachers that encourage them.” Jackson describes SB 1307 as “an important and significant step in supporting and preserving the foundations of our democracy.”

Kyle Samia is a student at the University of California at San Diego who writes for the California Progress Report as part of an academic internship program with the University of California at Sacramento journalism program this summer.