The Assembly amended Senate Bill 1370, stripping it of the moniker "Journalism Teachers' Protection Act" and making clear that the protections extend to all teachers, not just journalism advisers. The bill makes it illegal to retaliate against teachers for protecting students engaged in free speech or expression. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), passed the Assembly by a 67-6 vote on June 16. It now is back in the Senate for a concurrence vote and possible amendments.

UC says one of the existing laws the bill would amend if enacted, Education Code Section 66301, already affords substantial protections to students, faculty and staff at public colleges and universities. Happy Chastain, senior legislative director for state government relations in the UC president's office, wrote in a letter to Yee that the new law could disrupt the academic environment and would restrict the university's ability to discipline faculty members who do not keep up with instructional standards.

"Under the provisions of SB 1370, UC is concerned that its ability to act in such circumstances would be restricted and expose the University to frivolous and unwarranted litigation," Chastain wrote, giving a hypothetical example in which a teacher allows a student to voice off-topic opinions during class.

Mark Goodman, the Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University, said he is not sure why the university thinks the speech in the given hypothetical would be protected.

"The letter cites as a hypothetical example a math instructor who allowed a student to promote opinions unrelated to the subject during class time, suggesting that under the law, the university would be prohibited from punishing the teacher for tolerating the disruptive student speech," Goodman, a former executive director of the Student Press Law Center, wrote on the Center for Scholastic Journalism's blog. "Of course, the letter never explains why the University believes that off-topic student speech in the classroom would be protected by the law in the first place, a requirement for the university employee protections of the bill to come into play."

Adam Keigwin, Yee's communications director, said this hypothetical would be "almost irrelevant" because the teacher could be disciplined for not teaching the curriculum, and went on to say that the student's speech in the example would probably be seen as unprotected speech.

"A court would have to make that determination, but I would suspect it wouldn't be protected speech because it would be disturbing the learning environment," Keigwin said.

Now, Yee is in negotiations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a member of the board of regents, to add language to the bill clarifying that the amendment could not be used to help teachers who simply are not doing their jobs. Keigwin said the bill is not meant to protect bad teachers or to interfere with curriculum and that administrators do need a way to get rid of those teachers.

A part of the California Education Code adopted in the 1990s requires that the UC Board of Regents pass a resolution formally adopting any changes of to code. Keigwin said Yee fully expects UC to comply with the bill but that the senator is focused on getting the bill passed and signed by the governor and will have a conversation with the regents about adopting the bill after that.

SB 1370 is a follow-up to a 2006 bill, AB 2581, which protects student speech at public colleges and universities from censorship based on its content and bars administrators from exercising prior restraint of student publications. Similar state laws protect high school students. In response, many administrators began punishing advisers for student speech the administrators objected to, Yee's office said. There are several cases in the state in which advisers were either removed from the position or fired, a dozen of which have been reported to Yee's office since the bill was introduced to the Senate in February.

Another amendment to SB 1370 made in the Assembly would allow students who believe their free-speech rights were violated to begin or continue lawsuits against their schools even after graduating. Existing laws allow only currently enrolled students to bring such suits.

The bill is expected to clear a concurrence vote in the Senate next week before going to Schwarzenegger's desk for approval or veto.

The state Assembly sent another bill sponsored by Yee to the governor's desk Monday after a unanimous vote. The legislation prevents government agencies from entering contracts with private parties that prevent them from disclosing information subject to the state's Public Records Act.

The bill, Senate Bill 1696 is a response to a contract between the University of California at San Francisco and a private auditing firm that prohibited the school from fulfilling a January 2007 open-records request from the San Francisco Chronicle. The contract required consent from the firm before the requested information could be released.

"The public deserves to see how their tax dollars are being spent and should not be prevented access to contracts, audits, reviews or reports of government agencies," Yee said in a written statement. "Simply entering into a confidentiality agreement with a third party will no longer be an excuse to not disclose information and avoid scrutiny and accountability.