FALLBROOK: Advisor fights for free speech

School journalism adviser claims principal violated law by censoring students

By GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 19, 2008 4:09 PM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- A Fallbrook High School teacher who was removed as the school's journalism adviser says the campus principal violated the state Education Code by censoring an editorial and a news article in the campus newspaper.

Teacher Dave Evans said Principal Rod King told him he had to remove a student-written editorial criticizing abstinence-only sex education before The Tomahawk campus newspaper could go to press late last semester.

Evans said King also told him he could not run an article about the school board's decision to remove Superintendent Tom Anthony last November.

King did not return phone calls.

Evans said that after he asked Fallbrook Union High School District board President Bill O'Connor on June 4 to meet with parents who were upset about the decision to hold both the editorial and news article, King called him into his office the next day.

"He said that I was removed as adviser and that the class was canceled for doing what he called an end run around him," Evans said.

O'Connor did not return a call from the North County Times.

The California Education Code prohibits prior restraint of student newspapers, and a state bill passed by the Assembly and Senate would prohibit retaliation against a teacher who defended students' free speech.

Even so, administrators are allowed to censor student newspapers in California under very specific circumstances, said Jim Ewert, an attorney with the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

"Education Code section 48907 allows a principal to exercise prior restraint over a story if it's obscene, libelous, slanderous or would create a clear and present danger to the physical safety of someone on campus," Ewert said. "An accurate story about a superintendent's problems with his board I don't think falls into any of those categories. Prohibiting the publication of that story would have been a violation of the students' rights."

The section further states: "There shall be no prior restraint of material prepared for official school publications except insofar as it violates this section. School officials shall have the burden of showing justification without undue delay prior to any limitation of student expression under this section."

Evans said he wrote a letter to Superintendent Robert French, arguing for the return of the class and for his reinstatement as adviser.

The district's attorney, Dan Shinoff, said last week that he would meet with French next week to discuss the situation.

Meanwhile, the state Assembly last Monday approved a bill that would make it illegal for administrators to retaliate against teachers who defend students' free speech.

State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, said he wrote Senate Bill 1370 because administrators were getting around the state Education Code against censorship by pressuring advisers to kill stories they did not like.

"We had heard a number of stories where administrators and principals would try to censor student articles and writings," Yee said in a phone interview from San Francisco.

The bill already has passed the state Senate and is headed to the governor's desk. If approved, it would become law next year.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.