Calif. school censors story about teacher's relationship with underage movie star
Students gathered info from court documents, but principal claims story invaded teacher's privacy

© 2003 Student Press Law Center

July 2, 2003

CALIFORNIA — After months of sifting through court documents, two high school student journalists learned in May that their article about a teacher’s rocky breakup with a Hollywood actor would not be published because the administration said it was an invasion of privacy.

The Venice High School students, Naldy Estrada and Julio Robles, co-wrote the article for The Oarsman based on a civil lawsuit filed by health teacher Jacqueline Domac against actor Edward Furlong, who she said she began a “quasi spousal” relationship with 10 years ago when he was a minor. The students are crying censorship, claiming that the public had a right to know about the relationship. But Principal Jan Davis killed the article in May, insisting it was necessary to protect the privacy of the teacher.

In their article, the student journalists included details from a lawsuit Domac filed that sought damages from Furlong after he fired her as his manager in 1998. The students also reported on her 1995 misdemeanor conviction for disturbing the peace, which was later expunged from her record.

The students chronicled Domac and Furlong’s personal relationship, which also was reported in a Los Angeles Times article about the censorship. According to the court documents the students obtained, Domac met Furlong on the set of “Terminator 2” where she worked as his stand-in. Domac said in her lawsuit that they moved in together in 1993 and she became his manager in 1995, reported the Los Angeles Times.

When Estrada and Robles went to seek Principal Davis’s comment for the story, the students said that she told them the piece was intrusive, and if it ran, it would damage Domac’s reputation. At the meeting between the students and Domac, Davis, a school district attorney and a union representative, Domac gave the students a letter in which she threatened to sue them for libel and slander if the article was published.

The student journalists said the community deserves to know about Domac’s relationship with a minor because she teaches sex education in the school.

They said they came across the idea for a story on Domac while researching information about a Web site she had launched in an effort to curtail junk food sales at school. While looking for background about Domac, the students typed her name into Google.com, and articles mentioning her relationship with Furlong surfaced. Estrada said pictures and stories about the couple were well-documented in magazines, such as Entertainment Weekly, in the mid-1990s.

Estrada and Robles worked with Los Angeles Times reporter Glenn Bunting, who volunteers as a journalism tutor at the school. Together, they investigated Domac’s official court documents at Los Angeles Superior Court.

Davis ordered the student journalists to submit the article for prior review. Oarsman adviser Nancy Zubiri, Bunting and media law attorney Susan Seager reviewed the article for libelous or slanderous material before turning it in to the principal.

“I thought [the students] did an extremely good job in presenting the information. The students only worked with information from court documents,” said Zubiri, a former reporter for the Oakland Tribune. “They did have other information from magazine articles that we felt had some important information for the story, but based on the recommendation of the lawyer, we did not put that information in because it was not as privileged the way court document information is.”

Seager said she believes the students’ First Amendment rights were violated. She is assisting the students pro bono, but has not filed a lawsuit against the school.

According to Seager, under California Law and the First Amendment, the media, including student media, are permitted to write stories based on public court documents. The California Student Free Expression Law grants students more protection against administrative censorship, than was provided by the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Under Hazelwood, the First Amendment allows administrators to censor many school-sponsored student newspapers if they can show they have a legitimate educational reason for doing so.

Seager said the right to publish the information is protected from lawsuits, so long as the documents are fairly and accurately described, which she believes the Oarsman article did.

“The suppression of the news story violated the school district’s own policy as well as California state law and the First Amendment,” she said. “This is a very important story about a teacher, who has an important job [and] had a very public relationship with an actor, according to court documents, which she herself filed.”

The school board’s district policy states that an article may not be censored “merely because it is controversial” but also says that a school newspaper may not publish material which “violates the right of privacy.” According to Seager, the school district attorneys advised Davis that she should decide for herself whether or not to run the article.

Davis did not return several phone calls requesting comment, but she told the Los Angeles Times that the information in the article was inapplicable to Domac’s position at the high school.

“I don’t think that anyone’s business, public or private, should be in the school newspaper,” Davis said. “As a district employee, all staff and teachers are entitled to privacy. I don’t believe it’s an issue of censorship. I might be the public’s right to know but, as the principal, I don’t think it’s the student newspaper’s place to tell that story.”

The school district attorney’s office refused to comment on the censorship issue. The district would not provide the name of the attorney who consulted with Davis about the article.

After Estrada and Robles’s article was censored, the students wrote an editorial expressing their discontent with the censorship of the article and the reasons why they felt the information in the Oarsman article was important.

Ultimately, Estrada and Robles’s editorial also was censored by Davis. Instead, the headline “The Oarsman is Censored” appeared on the newspaper’s final issue of the year. The article was written by the Oarsman opinion editor and addressed the issue of censorship, why the Oarsman editors believe the story should have run and Davis’s justification for the censorship.

Currently, Estrada and Robles are working on revising their editorial, which the Los Angeles Times has expressed interest in publishing.

Seager said she is unsure whether the students will file a lawsuit because Estrada, who will be attending Santa Monica College in the fall, has already graduated. Robles will be a junior next school year. Seager asserts that the students are more interested in making the district aware of its own policy and change it.

Estrada said that as a reporter, she feels obliged to stand up for the First Amendment.

“Sometimes I think, what if [the administration were to] do this again? They hurt us and violated our rights,” Estrada, who wants to be a journalist, said. “This shows [the administration] that students don’t have any rights. As reporters I think we should do something about it.”

Estrada and Robles continue to be disappointed in the behavior of the administration, but confident there have been some lessons learned.

“The administrators at Venice High attempt to teach us to do the right thing, to be open-minded to be fair, and to be unbiased,” Estrada said reading a line from their unpublished editorial. “It is unbelievable to us that they did the opposite.”

Robles adds, “[As a reporter], I’ve learned a lot from this. You have to be responsible.”

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For More Information: Read Estrada and Robles's commentary piece in the Los Angeles Times

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