The Student Press Law Center today congratulated California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing one of the nation's toughest and most forward-looking laws protecting teachers against unfair retaliation when they stand up for their students' First Amendment rights.

"While this law makes the workplace safer for teachers, the real beneficiaries are California's students, who no longer must fear that honest reporting on school events will get their favorite teacher fired," SPLC Executive Director Frank D. LoMonte said. "Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature should be commended for sending a message to school officials — in California and across the nation — that teachers are not to be used as pawns to intimidate kids into avoiding legitimate topics of discussion."

The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) is a Washington, D.C.-area nonprofit whose mission is to advocate for free-press rights for high school and college journalists nationwide. The Center provides legal information and referral assistance at no charge to students and the educators who work with them.

California's new law provides that no public school or college employee may be dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred, or otherwise retaliated against solely for acting to protect a student who is engaged in legally protected conduct. This includes the publication of speech that is not obscene, libelous, slanderous or substantially disruptive to the safe operations of the school.

Colorado and Kansas are the only other states with express anti-retaliation laws protecting teachers who advise student publications. The California law is even broader than these states' laws, because it applies to all modes of lawful student speech, not just publications.

"Teachers losing their jobs for refusing to censor their students' news reporting is a real and pervasive problem, and it is going on all too commonly in America's schools," LoMonte said.

Just last year, SPLC volunteer attorneys secured a favorable settlement for the journalism adviser at Ocean County College in New Jersey, who had been forced from her position after the student newspaper ran a number of articles critical of the college administration. Adviser Karen Bosley was reinstated as a journalism teacher and given a $90,000 settlement. "It is sadly common for schools to resort to indirect forms of censorship because they have figured out that the Constitution will not allow them to directly censor content just because it 'makes the school look bad.' This indirect censorship takes many forms — squeezing a newspaper's budget, moving the staff into undesirable office space — but the most insidious is damaging an educator's career just to send a warning to the students," LoMonte said.

LoMonte pointed out that, even in states that lack explicit statutory protection for teachers, there are avenues to challenge the unfair removal of journalism advisers. "Students can bring, and have brought, First Amendment claims on their own behalf, because punishing the adviser wrongfully deters and intimidates the students from exercising their rights. The California law clarifies and strengthens existing protections, and removes any doubt that administrators cannot censor indirectly by holding the teacher's job security hostage."

In a separate and important provision, Senate Bill 1370 clarifies that students do not lose their right to bring legal action to challenge unlawful censorship or retaliation when they graduate. "This provision is important to keep legal action as a meaningful deterrent to censorship," LoMonte said, noting that at least one federal court of appeals (the Tenth Circuit) has held that students' censorship claims can be mooted if they graduate while litigation is pending, even during the appeal process, which can typically take several years. "Senate Bill 1370 makes clear that schools cannot censor with impunity simply by 'running out the clock' on student litigants."

The Center gave special thanks to the sponsor of Senate Bill 1370, Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), a longtime advocate for the free expression rights of young people. While a member of the California Assembly, Sen. Yee secured passage of a 2006 law declaring that public colleges and universities cannot discipline students for speech protected by the First Amendment.

"Senator Yee is a champion for student voices, and he deserves special recognition and thanks for his tireless work in shepherding Senate Bill 1370 over tough opposition," LoMonte said. "Students don't have high-priced lobbyists or campaign PACs, but in California they have something better — Senator Leland Yee."

For more information on the SPLC, go to www.splc.org.