Category | News

California senator’s bill protects freedom of the press

Published on October 14, 2008 by The Sentinel

    California Senate Bill 1370 was recently signed by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill provides legal protection to any faculty “acting to
protect” the freedom of press and other forms of communication within
schools.

    According to Senator Yee, the San Fransisco representative for the California State Senate, “senate Bill 1370 follows a 2006 law I authored to prohibit censorship of college press by administrators and protect students from being disciplined for engaging in speech or press activities.”

    The bill is four pages long and includes specific phrases which allow an employee fired for protecting freedom of the press to file civil action against the employer and recover attorney’s fees. The addition,  this phrase allows a school employee to spare no expense in legal action against an organization exercising censorship.

    According to Yee, “Allowing a school administrator to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process.” Yee’s protection of the right to free speech and press was, according to the same statement, based on previous action against some teachers in California. These actions include attempts by school officials to enforce censorship.

    Although there is no similar law in Georgia, both Colorado and Kansas have adopted legislation to protect students’ free expression in a similar way.  Ed Bonza, KSU’s student media advisor, says “The administration have been good to me.” However, in reference to other institutions, Mr. Bonza explains that some advisors “have not been so fortunate.”

    Enacting such a law in Georgia would allow the first ammendment rights of college students to be more defensible, if not directly protected. By protecting legally the people who are able to defend a free press, such a law protects students from the potential implications of  Hosty v. Carter. Hosty v. Carter refers to a case put before the 7th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in which the court ruled that administrators have the right to censor college publications.

    In ruling, the court deferred to a previous ruling by the Supreme Court, made in 1988 over the case Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier. The court ruled that high school adminstrators could censor publicaitons within their institutions. By applying a ruling made based on high schools to a case in a university, the Seventh Circuit exercised its ability to establish common law, which is now overturned by more recent statutory law, SB 1370 in California.

    Georgia’s enactment of such a law would protect the constitutional law with statutory law, defending the freedom of the press in the face of common law opposition. These three types of law and the cases in point are effective examples of how the U.S. legal system governs what can and cannot be done within the United States in general, and states in particular. The U.S. Constitution sets forth a vague freedom of press, which, along with the statutory law codified by the legislature, is interpreted by courts into common law based on legal precedents.

    Each state also has a legislature and constitution, and therefore a court system which must interpret the laws given by these sources. The federal court covers the whole country with its common law, but if a state makes a law in contradiction to that law, as California has done, legal precedent has a more recent and, therefore, valid source, and must confirm to the recent law. However, judges still have a large amount of leeway, as the supreme court has established the power of judicial review, the ability to overturn laws.