Two pupil journalists from a Bay Space highschool are suing their principal and district, claiming they have been illegally intimidated whereas reporting on a narrative about sexual harassment for the varsity’s newspaper.
The advisor of the student-run newspaper can also be a part of the swimsuit, alleging she was retaliated towards when she didn’t associate with the “marketing campaign of censorship” aimed on the college students’ reporting, in response to the criticism, filed final week within the Santa Clara County Superior Courtroom.
The lawsuit was filed towards the Mountain View Los Altos Excessive College District and Mountain View Excessive principal Kip Glazer, calling her an “overbearing highschool principal” accused of “bullying, threatening and [the] coercion of pupil journalists.”
“Glazer did what she may to silence the coed journalists, and, successfully, to silence the victims of sexual harassment at Mountain View Excessive College,” the criticism stated. Jean-Paul Jassy, the lawyer for the scholars and advisor, has represented reporters at The Instances in different instances.
Glazer didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Instances, nor did the district’s superintendent’s workplace.
The 2 college students who filed the lawsuit — Hanna Olson, now a co-editor-in-chief on the faculty’s paper, and Hayes Duenow, a former pupil reporter for the newspaper who’s now a freshman at UC Riverside — are searching for no monetary damages within the case, however wish to guarantee pupil journalists on the faculty shall be freed from censorship sooner or later.
“I wouldn’t really feel proper if I didn’t know that I used to be doing every little thing that I can to verify our journalism program stays robust,” stated Olson, a 17-year-old senior at Mountain View Excessive. “I wish to be certain that our newspaper is protected and that we don’t ever must be fearful about censorship or retribution for publishing one thing ever once more.”
The lawsuit alleges the principal and the district violated the California Schooling Code, which supplies robust protections for pupil journalism and free speech with few exceptions, similar to content material that’s obscene, libelous or slanderous. It additionally claims the defendants violated state labor legal guidelines by retaliating towards the newspaper’s advisor, Carla Gomez, by eradicating her from that publish with out simply trigger and eliminating the varsity’s introductory journalism class, the gateway for college kids to affix the coed newspaper, the Oracle. Gomez is searching for monetary damages within the case, in addition to resumption of her newspaper advisory position and for the journalism course to be reinstated.
The article that sparked the lawsuit reported a number of cases and patterns of alleged student-on-student sexual harassment at the highschool. Whereas college students did ultimately publish the piece final spring, the ultimate story included “substantive modifications” — together with the removing of key particulars — from earlier drafts, after stress from Glazer, the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit alleged Glazer needed to “keep away from embarrassment relatively than to respect and uphold the constitutional and statutory rights of her college students and school.”
Duenow was one of many article’s reporters and Olson helped edit it.
“That article was positively a heavy one to edit and to analysis, simply due to the character of the story,” stated Olson, who hopes to pursue journalism as a profession at some point. “However I believe that it could have been such a disservice to [the reporters] … and to the scholars who have been courageous sufficient to return ahead with their story if we hadn’t printed that article.”
When the varsity’s administration discovered of the article, Glazer addressed the journalism class, telling college students to write down concerning the faculty in a “constructive gentle” and asking to assessment a draft of the article, in response to the lawsuit. She later met with Gomez and college students engaged on the article, when she “bullied and intimidated the coed journalists” to take away components of their reporting, the lawsuit stated.
“College students have a proper to have a student-run publication,” Gomez stated, who additionally teaches English, philosophy and American literature, and acquired further coaching to turn out to be the journalism advisor. “Journalism can not survive if it’s being scrutinized by individuals with energy which are in a position to intimidate college students into not writing about necessary issues.”
Gomez related the scholars with the Pupil Press Regulation Middle, however nonetheless, Olson remembered feeling the stress from her principal.
In prior years “we didn’t have quite a lot of points or interference from the administration … so it was fairly shocking to see how a lot our administration was simply against the publication of the article,” Olson stated. “I keep in mind pondering like, ‘Are we doing one thing flawed? Have we overstepped by researching and investigating this matter?’ … It’s scary when you’ve people who find themselves, in some methods, funding your newspaper, but in addition people who find themselves in positions of energy, telling you that you just’re doing one thing flawed.”
After their conferences and stress from Glazer, the scholars altered the article in a number of methods, together with eradicating an outline of a disturbing incident, the title of an extracurricular program involving an alleged serial harasser and an accuser’s issues that the varsity wasn’t holding harassers accountable, in response to the lawsuit. The article had all the time used pseudonyms for the alleged harassers.
The Oracle, the coed newspaper, has a historical past of taking over troublesome topics, drawing headlines in 2013, and criticism from mother and father, for a narrative on intercourse and relationships — however then, directors stood by the scholars’ work. The superintendent on the time was quoted within the East Bay Instances calling the coed newspaper “excellent,” and that “there’s nothing I’d have taken down.”
However inside a month of the sexual harassment article publishing final 12 months, Gomez was eliminated as journalism advisor and the introductory journalism course for the autumn was canceled.
In line with the criticism, faculty officers have stated that substantive modifications weren’t made to the article after Glazer’s assessment and that the introduction to journalism class was reduce due to a scarcity of enrollment.
“Fairly than bullying and intimidating pupil journalists, Mountain View Excessive College directors needs to be listening to, empowering and supporting them,” Gary Inexperienced, the manager director of the Pupil Press Regulation Middle, stated in an announcement. “The scholars’ in-depth reporting on a critical subject at Mountain View is exactly what the California legislature meant to guard.”
For Duenow, who’s finding out sociology in faculty, the lawsuit is a chance to proceed to advocate for the highschool paper and be certain that all college students have a voice on campus.
“I believe journalism and pupil journalism particularly is simply extremely necessary,” Duenow stated. “I believe that our voices could be a superpower. … I needed to be part of [the case] as a result of I needed it to be an instance of how necessary it’s to battle for the flexibility to make use of your superpower, to make use of your voice.”
