The adviser of a high school newspaper in Orange County, California says a revised publication policy at the charter school, the Orange County High School of the Arts, is in conflict with a proposed state law inspired by alleged censorship problems at the school.-DB
January 13, 2010
By Stefanie Dazio
SB 438, which if enacted will prevent attempted censorship by charter school administrators, passed the Senate’s judiciary committee in a unanimous 5-0 vote today, according to the Orange County Register.
The bill, introduced by State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), amends California Education Code Section 48907 — the state’s student free expression code — to read “pupils of the public schools, including charter schools, shall have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press …”
The legislation serves to tighten ambiguities that administrators at Orange County High School of the Arts relied upon to defend a weeklong delay to print the student newspaper, the Evolution, according to the Orange County Register.
The Evolution, advised by Konnie Krislock, was postponed because of administrative reaction to two articles — one about the school’s theme of the year and one that was about the school’s contract with a Christian food vendor.
The school’s president and executive director, Dr. Ralph Opacic, told the Orange County Register this bill would not affect the Evolution, as it outlaws only prior restraint, not prior review. Opacic did not return calls by press time.
Opacic said the administrators did nothing that the amended law would make illegal.
“We did not restrain or censor anything,” he told the Orange County Register. “Education Code Section 48907 does not preclude prior review, which is what we did in the incident.”
But Yee’s Chief of Staff, Adam Keigwin, disagreed.
“They looked at it and didn’t like it and stopped publication,” he said in the Orange County Register. “It was the act of stopping the publication, not the review, that violated the law. Prior restraint can be 20 minutes or 10 years. If there’s a delay in publication because you need to review it, that’s delaying the speech.”
This delay worries Krislock, who said she was given an updated version of the school’s publication policy the day before winter break.
In it are three items that “directly oppose” the student free expression bill, according to Krislock. They include banning advertisements inappropriate for minors and a school environment, providing a copy of the publication to administrators at least three days prior to printing, and appointing the school as publisher of all school publications.
Krislock now finds herself in a “legal limbo right now,” between the current Section 48907 and “the possible penalty of my administrators saying I was insubordinate.”
Krislock and her students are currently “acting like [the new publication policy] doesn’t exist” and hope the Senate bill passes before the end of the month, when the Evolution’s next issue is scheduled to print.