Bill protects adviser rights

A bill protecting the rights of high school and college teachers and employees against administrators was approved and turned into a California state law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sept. 28.


Authored by Sen. Leland Yee, Senate Bill 1370 aims to stop administrators from retaliating against journalism advisers or other faculty and staff for permitting students to exercise their freedom of speech rights.


"It means, hopefully once and for all, that student speech and First Amendment rights will be protected on campus," said Adam Keigwin, communications director in the office of Sen. Yee.

The bill protects all members of the faculty in public schools, whether journalism advisers or custodians, acting to protect the student voice.

"It means a lot," Contra Costa College journalism adviser Paul DeBolt said. "There have been instances where students are pressured not to cover something to protect advisers."

Preceded by Assembly Bill 2581, a law prohibiting campus officials from suppressing students of freedom of the press, SB 1370 was formed to extinguish any further attempts to discipline speech rights.

"Readers and the school community suffer from a tampered journalism program," said Jim Ewert, legal counsel of the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

Hercules High School journalism teacher John Brown believes in the positive effect of the bill's approval.

"It may open up more avenues of dialogue," Brown said. "Students should still be responsible for what they want to write. Students believe that teachers should not be punished for the way students think."


CCC student Christine Perdiguerra agreed, noting the importance of a student newspaper to its campus.

"When you're at the high school and college level, it is the promotion of individual thinking," Perdiguerra said.


There have been various instances where advisers were punished by the administration for the material published in student newspapers.


In Southeast High School in Los Angeles, the principal removed the journalism adviser from his position as a result of an article written about the administration enforcing random locker searches, Ewert said.


Recently in Redding, Keigwin said, an administrator fired an adviser and removed the newspaper program because he disagreed with a critical editorial published.


Some administrations, however, understand the importance of news and the publications that spread it.


"I've always been at a campus where the administrators respect the rights of the students and advisers, even in controversial subjects," Brown said.


The last vote in the Senate was passed on August 5, but its final approval was delayed by Schwarzenegger's refusal to sign any bill before the budget was signed.

The bill passed the California Assembly 72-1 and the final vote in the Senate 31-2.

The bill officially becomes enacted on Jan. 1.

"Hopefully we'll see other states follow California's lead on this," Cerritos College journalism adviser Rich Cameron said.

Contact Asia Camagong at acamagong.advocate@gmail.com.