Former CA High School Student Wins Free Speech Fight with School

Free speech is free speech, even when its content is found to be objectionable. That's the message of the California Supreme Court's 3-0 decision this month to support a student who wrote a November 2001 editorial about immigration that was deemed unacceptable by his school district.

"It can't be hard to find and detain the people who can't speak English," Andrew Smith, a Novato (CA) High School student at the time, wrote in the student newspaper, The Buzz. "If a person looks suspicious [then] just stop them and ask a few questions, and if they answer "Que?" detain them and see if they are legal."

The Novato Unified School District publicly condemned two of Smith's columns. An effort also was made to confiscate copies of the columns.

Smith, who claimed he was physically attacked on campus filed a lawsuit that sought a nominal award of $1 and a declaration that the school district had violated his rights. But A Marin County judge rejected Smith's claims. Smith appealed to the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, which in a ruling last May sided with the former high school journalist, now in community college in Santa Rosa.

Then came California's high court ruling upholding the appeals decision. "A school may not prohibit student speech simply because it presents controversial ideas, and opponents of the speech are likely to cause disruption," Justice Linda Gemello said in the 3-0 ruling.

In its decision the California Supreme Court cited a 1971 California statute—the first such state law protecting free speech in public schools. Student speech can be censored only if it is obscene or libelous or creates a "clear and present danger" of disorder on campus.

Gemello acknowledged that Smith's editorial was written in a "disrespectful and unsophisticated manner" but contained no provocation or racial epithets. The decision described the California law as more protective of student expression than the U.S. Supreme Court has been.