Monte Vista junior Mac Witmer was sitting in her newspaper class after school with fellow classmates, when a discussion began about censorship at other school publications in San Ramon Valley Unified School District.
“We can’t believe some of the stuff (they) get into (at) the Cal High newspaper,” Mac said.
Mac, an editor at The Stampede, believed at the time that Monte Vista’s administrators wrongfully censored some of the content in the school’s newspaper.
But Mac now accepts administrators’ involvement and understands that this is just how things are run at Monte Vista and many other schools.
Mac said administrators’ influence has even improved the newspaper.
“Administration plays a large part in making our paper,” said Mac.
Student press rights are protected under California education code 48907, which states that students have the right to exercise freedom of the press unless what is written is obscene, libelous or creates a substantial disruption to the orderly operation of the school.
The education code also mandates that school publication advisers and student editors are solely responsible for determining the content of their newspapers.
School administrators are not considered to be advisers.
But different interpretations of this code by administrations have led to the act of prior review, or previewing the content of a newspaper and making suggestions for changes before going to print.
“Prior review is another word for censorship,” said John Ewert, legal counsel at the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
Ewert said administrators can request to review school newspapers only if they are trying to determine if an article’s content violates the education code.
If administrators review content to prevent a view from being expressed, or to protect the school’s reputation, then it is considered illegal, Ewert said.
“Prior review is a slippery slope to prior restraint,” said John Bowen, Journalism Education Association (JEA) Press Rights Commission Chair.
Prior restraint is the act of censoring an article or stopping publication in advance.
Some experts don’t believe prior review is censorship.
Steve O’Donoghue, who heads the California Scholastic Journalism initiative, said administrators have the right to review the paper.
“It’s not censorship, but student publications are supposed to be run by students,” said O’Donoghue.
By looking at the paper beforehand, administrators open up the door to greater school liability, O’Donoghue said. He said if administrators don’t review a paper before publication, students are the only ones liable.
Prior review criticized
The JEA Press Rights Commission denounces the practice of administrative prior review and believes that better strategies exist to enhance student learning while protecting school safety and reducing school liability.
But the JEA Press Rights Commission still supports administrators as a crucial element in the education process and understand the necessity of the administration being aware of the kind of content that is printed in school newspapers.
At The Stampede, several students say the administration strongly suggests that stories are turned into them for review prior to publication.
The newspaper staff provides a copy of each story to an administrator, who then reviews the articles and makes “corrections” and “improvements,” Mac wrotein an e-mail interview.
“We have a strong administration influence,” said Mac. “The administration doesn’t want the wrong view expressed in the paper and neither do we.”
The Stampede adviser Becky Bellini said the paper isn’t being censored if the administration is only suggesting that stories, which are poorly reported or show bias, be changed or omitted.
Bellini said her newspaper class shares storiess with administrators out of professional courtesy.
Several calls to Monte Vista Principal Becky Smith were not returned.
District follows ed code
San Ramon Valley Unified School District spokesman Terry Koehne believes administrators should be aware of the content of student publications.
“Their job is to ensure that the content of student publications doesn’t violate the education codes,” said Koehne.
But he said that new superintendent Steve Enoch does not instruct principals to review school newspapers before they are published.
Koehne believes students need to be empowered and trained to produce a publication themselves.
He said that if administrators act as a second adviser by steering them in what they believe to be is the right direction, then students will not benefit in the long run.
“According to the education codes, the administration shouldn’t be going over the paper without just cause,” said Koehne.
At San Ramon Valley High School’s Wolfprint, the administration requests to see the paper before it goes to print, according to adviser Giana Schmitz.
“The administration asks to see the paper because it is a reflection of the school and they want to make sure that there is no inappropriate content,” said Schmitz.
Before being sent to the printers, Schmitz gives copies of the stories to administrators for review.
“If there is a problem, they will e-mail me back,” said Schmitz. “But there has never been a problem.”
DV issue creates stir
At Dougherty Valley ’s online newspaper, The Wildcat Tribune, administrators asked to see newspaper articles before going to press, according to previous advisor Jacque Bowman.
Though The Wildcat Tribune has published only one issue this year, assistant principal Kelly Lara said she requested to preview it beforehand.
“The reason why I asked to see it out of courtesy was because it was the first edition,” said Lara, noting she was not shown the paper. “I have never seen the paper before it was printed.”
After Bowman did not turn the articles into administrators for the October issue, Lara sent her an e-mail in November requesting that all future issues are sent to the administration, according to an e-mail from Bowman.
“Going forward, out of courtesy, please send the articles to Principal (Denise) Hibbard and I so we can read them before they are published,” Lara wrote in the e-mail to Bowman.
Administrators were concerned about a Facebook page that was referenced in which the school was referred to as “fascist,” according to the e-mail.
The opinions column by Natalie Cha, which is still online, quotes a Facebook group in which Dougherty Valley is called a “fascist prison camp.”
A call to new Wildcat Tribune adviser Elizabeth Calhoon was not returned.
At The Californian, administrators do not review a publication before it goes to print.
Principal Mark Corti believes that if an article ever has to be censored because of education code violations, then he would work with adviser Brian Barr to resolve the issue.
“Mr. Barr works closely with me and if there is something we should be concerned about we use it as a learning experience with the students,” said Corti.
Censorship at Cal
Barr said The Californian has had one story removed from the paper in his 10 years as adviser. It was an opinion column he brought to the administration because there was concern for the writer’s safety.
It was removed from the paper because Corti believed it would create a substantial disruption to the school, which falls under the education code.
Corti and Barr met with the student to explain the decision, and Barr told the student he could fight the decision if he felt he was being unjustly censored. The student chose not to.
Knowing they could be subjected to censorship, reporters and editors of The Californian take their student press rights seriously.
If an administrator ever requested that a story be censored or reviewed prior to publication, students said they would refuse unless it was in direct violation of the education codes.
“If it’s in line with all the education codes and it could have a huge impact on the students then I would fight it,” said senior managing editor Jordan Hung.
But not all student journalists in the district are as determined to express their own views in the face of their administration.
“Unfortunately,” said Mac, Monte Vista’s editorial editor, “often our views aren’t expressed correctly.”