A long anticipated bill in support of college journalists has finally been passed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. On Aug. 28, Schwarzenegger signed Bill AB2581 that changes California Education Code 66301. This bill will eliminate any prior review of college student newspapers.
The bill makes California the first state to ever have this law protecting student journalists against prior review. It will be effective as of January first.
“There is a need for this bill,” said Rich Cameron, a member of the California Journalism Education Coalition. “Since the bill was signed, there have already been a few incidences where college presidents have opposed some papers and have sent them to a halt.”
According to the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, existing law prohibits colleges from making or enforcing any rule subjecting a student to disciplinary sanction solely on the basis of conduct that involves speech or other communication engaged in outside a campus. The student is protected from governmental restriction by specified provisions of the California Constitution or the United States Constitution.
This law is in direct response to Hosty vs. Carter, an incident in Illinois where student journalists were censored due to content. When word of this censorship spread through the states, California journalists took action to try to prevent anything like this ever happening in California.
“When the decision was made in Illinois, lawyers sent out memos to CSU presidents stating that they had more rights than students,” said Cameron.
Prior to this law, courts were indecisive on whether or not school officials could or could not censor a college paper. School officials would sometimes in defense bring up the court case Hazelwood School District V. Kuhlmeier. The courts granted high school administrators the courtesy of prior review, which had no impact on college journalists.
According to Cameron, high school students had more protections under the First Amendment due to the fact that their advisors act as the censor. College journalist advisers do not act as a shield.
“They were better off,” Cameron said.
Some school presidents may, however, decide that it’s not worth continuing a journalism program with no prior review. This is not likely to happen. If it did, officials have to think of a better reason such as the enrollment of that class and the cost.
“I’d hope students would fight it if they did abolish a program because of this law,” said Cameron. “They should record any statements and take it to court.”
Now that this law will go into effect and protect students from restraint all they have to do is worry about ethics. This law will give student journalists the proper learning environment to practice their journalistic skills.
“Huge changes on campuses are not expected,” said Cameron. “Most schools won’t change.”