New California Law Protects Advisers
Their accounts were so compelling, according to LoMonte, “that they made the difference” in getting an anti-retaliation law passed recently in California. The Journalism Teacher Protection Act, which became law in January, bars administrators at both the scholastic and collegiate level from retaliating against advisers for trying to protect student press freedoms.
The law states: “An employee shall not be dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or otherwise retaliated against solely for acting to protect a pupil engaged in the conduct authorized under this section, or refusing to infringe upon conduct that is protected by this section, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, or Section 2 of Article I of the California Constitution.”
The law is the strongest of its kind in the country. Backers say it closes a loophole in California law that had ensured free speech rights for students but failed to guarantee protections for advisers.
Only one other state, Kansas, has express protection against retaliation for faculty advisers, though that law applies only to advisers at the scholastic level. “California’s law is far stronger and more inclusive," LoMonte said. "It should be a model for the nation.”
Until all states pass laws similar to California’s, LoMonte added, student newspaper advisers will remain vulnerable. And there seems to be no shortage of school administrators who are all-too ready to exercise de facto censorship by retaliating against student newspaper advisers.
“To damage a person's livelihood because you are thin-skinned about what their students publish is cowardly, and it reflects such poor management ability that anyone caught engaging in this type of retaliation has no business supervising a school or, frankly, holding any position of responsibility in education,” LoMonte said.
Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said in California alone there had been 15 documented cases where high school journalism advisers had lost their jobs or been reassigned by administrators. “We believe there are at least six more cases where the adviser was too scared or embarrassed to come forward,” he said.
Ewert added that already this year, with the new law in effect, he had counseled two advisers who are under fire for “allowing” the students to publish stories that put the school in a bad light.
What's chilling is the fact that such cases arise not just at high schools or small colleges but at major universities, like the one involving Johnson at Kansas State University.
So what does it say about the vulnerability of student newspaper advisers nationwide - at both the high school and college level - that something like this could happen at Kansas State?
"That question — and the possibly ominous answers — consumed colleagues in the business," said Johnson, a past president of the group College Media Advisers. "It's never been easy being a college newspaper adviser."
But, added Johnson, who's now student-media director at Indiana University: "A colleague at another school said last week that he was wondering if I would return to student media. I’m very glad to be back. Each day’s challenge is as fresh as the day’s news. Ultimately, the reward is seeing your students work hard, improve their products and serve readers the best they can."
