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| Yearbook adviser John Scott at Modesto’s Thomas Downey High School backs students’ right to freely express their ideas.. |
When Thomas Downey High School students printed a photo spread in the yearbook titled “Beer, Bongs and Booty” two years ago, they got a big reaction from the rural community of Modesto. School board members denounced the publication, and morning talk shows blasted the students and the school.
“It wasn’t the best choice these kids made, but they had the right to do it,” says yearbook adviser John Scott, a Modesto Teachers Association member.
As advisers to student newspapers and yearbooks, teachers like Scott sometimes find themselves in the precarious position of defending students’ First Amendment rights — even if they don’t agree with what the students have to say.
Under the Education Code, students in public schools have freedom of speech and freedom of the press protections unless the material is deemed to be obscene, libelous, slanderous, or likely to disrupt the school site or incite the commission of unlawful acts on school premises. The censorship of material before it is published is prohibited.
Overall, says Scott, the yearbook was “an amazing book” that he compares to an Escher painting, offering a complexity and sophistication that can be appreciated by those willing to look beyond those risqué pages and judge the work in its entirety. But others didn’t see it that way.
“People would ask, ‘How could you let them do it?’” recalls Scott. “I was uncomfortable with it, but the bottom line is that it’s not my book. It’s their book. They pay for it. It’s a book that’s by kids for kids. It’s not for Mr. Scott, the parents or the community.”
As he was talking, students were putting the finishing touches on the next yearbook, which he predicted would also spark controversy. It features students coming out of the closet as gay and lesbian, and a story by a student who confesses to struggling with drugs and alcohol and having an abortion.
“I’m going to have a bad week in June,” he predicted wearily.
Fortunately for Scott, his principal and superintendent uphold the First Amendment rights of students and have defended the award-winning yearbook. Others in his position are not so lucky.
Andrew Nolan was ousted from his post as student newspaper adviser at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill last June when the publication ran stories that made administrators unhappy. Topics included student fights, discipline problems on campus, broken computers, the High School Exit Exam and a job-shadowing program that some students considered ineffective.
Nolan, a member of the Mount Diablo Education Association (MDEA), has been reassigned to teach English.
When he first accepted the role of newspaper adviser, he told the principal he planned to encourage students to tackle “real issues” much like a community newspaper, and there was no objection. Students, he says, did a good job journalistically.
“They put their hearts and souls into it to make it the best paper it could be,” says Nolan. “Students started reading it for the first time. It used to be delivered and kids would just walk by on their way to lunch. But soon kids were clamoring for copies.”
When he was first told of his reassignment, administrators said the reason was that his “talents could be better put to use teaching core curriculum.” However, a school district spokesperson later told a local newspaper that Nolan was reassigned because the student newspaper did not include the viewpoints of administrators. Nolan finds that ironic, since students often asked administrators for quotes and received a “no comment” response.
CTA plans to file a lawsuit against the district alleging that Nolan’s First Amendment rights were violated when he was removed from his position, says CTA Chief Counsel Beverly Tucker.
Quietly accepting the principal’s decision was not an option, says Nolan. “What kind of role model would I be for students if I just rolled over on this one? That wouldn’t be teaching them anything. And they deserve better than that.”
Harold Morris knew he had problems at Kennedy High School in Anaheim when a student wrote an article describing a visit to a local radio station that included models showing off body piercings in places that can’t be mentioned in family publications.
“The red flag went up,” says the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association member, who found the article questionable but not obscene. After it was printed, he was called into the principal’s office. “He screamed and yelled and threatened to pull funding. I listened. He put a letter in my file. I put a rebuttal in. And that was it.”
Morris next had to defend a student who had written what Morris considered to be a “fair and balanced” article about the school board and superintendent. The principal, who had heard an unsubstantiated rumor that the article accused the superintendent of being racist, demanded to read the article in advance. Reminding the principal that he did not have “pre-approval” rights under law further inflamed the situation. The Orange County Register interviewed the journalism students about free speech and accompanied the article with a photo of them proudly holding up their newspaper.
“The student’s article came out beautifully written, and we didn’t hear anything else,” says Morris. “At the end of the year, we submitted the paper to the Los Angeles Times contest and placed second in the county in general excellence.” The principal refused to announce the award at an assembly, leaving it to a student to make the announcement.
The stress eventually proved too much for Morris, who is now a librarian at two other Anaheim school sites. “It was difficult to work in an atmosphere of bitterness, resentment and silent treatment,” he says. “In order to do a good job, you may have to put up with stuff from narrow-minded people. It can be very unpleasant.”
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| Newspaper adviser Katharine Swan (center) was involuntarily transferred after students at Mission High School in San Francisco printed stories that upset the administration. The newspaper, which went on to receive the Ed Sullivan Award from Columbia Scholastic Press and Playboy magazine’s First Amendment Award, no longer exists. Here Swan helps Lowell High School students Kimberly Chua and Alexis Kim design their paper. |
After 25 years at Mission High School in San Francisco, Katharine Swan was involuntarily transferred to Lowell High School because the principal was upset with stories that appeared in the student newspaper. But if the United Educators of San Francisco member had to do it all over again, she wouldn’t change a thing.
The problems began with a new administration in 1997. Although the first issue of the school year featured complimentary profiles of three of the new administrators, they took exception to a small editorial in favor of a school board member who was not supportive of the superintendent.
The principal walked into Swan’s classroom one day and asked her to leave so that he could speak to the students privately about the editorial. She complied, learning afterward that he asked the students point-blank who had instructed them to write the editorial. The students responded that it was their newspaper and nobody told them what to write. Naturally, the students wrote up their interrogation in the next issue, which further angered the principal.
Relations between the student newspaper staff and administration worsened when the newspaper criticized the principal’s action of tearing photos of Mission High School graduates from hallway walls; reported that members of the boys’ basketball team received athletic shoes and female players did not; and described how the principal had attempted to fire a coach in the middle of a basketball game.
Things came to a head when students got hold of a faculty evaluation of administrators, and published the results, including the principal’s low marks.
Shortly before that issue went to press, Swan received a call from the assistant superintendent telling her not to print that story. But after checking on laws pertaining to student publications and finding out it was perfectly legal to do so, Swan’s students published it anyway. The next spring the newspaper won the Ed Sullivan Award from Columbia Scholastic Press. A few of the students and Swan attended the awards ceremony in New York.
The school was “reconstituted” at the end of the year, which meant the entire staff was fired and allowed to reapply for their jobs. “It was clear that I couldn’t come back,” says Swan. “It was a foregone conclusion that I was not welcome.”
After Swan was transferred, the newspaper received Playboy Magazine’s First Amendment Award and a $5,000 prize. Swan and a few students went to New York to claim the money, which she donated to the Mission Alumni Club for student scholarships. Mission High no longer has a student newspaper.
Swan now serves as adviser to the Lowell High School student newspaper, which stirred up controversy by criticizing the policies of former superintendent Arlene Ackerman. After publishing an article about a “gag order” for district employees that was issued by Ackerman and a cartoon of Ackerman tying a gag over the mouth of an employee, students received a visit from the district’s public relations staff and were lectured on “journalistic integrity.” Students and Swan listened politely, but stood by the story.
“Student newspapers are important, because that’s where students learn what’s going on in the world,” says Swan. “They grow and learn and realize they have power and responsibility. They write about what matters to them, and most students rise to the occasion beautifully.”
