Such retaliation, he said, "was simply a ruse to get rid of a particular teacher who was helping students get a newspaper out."
Yee said that his measure was opposed by some school administrators and board members but that 1st Amendment issues outweighed their concerns.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, January 11, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 47 words Type of Material: Correction
New law: An article in the Jan. 4 California section about a state law protecting journalism advisors from retaliation said that only Colorado had similar protections for advisors, according to Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. Only Kansas provides similar protections for advisors.
One of the cases often cited by supporters involved Janet Ewell, who oversaw an award-winning journalism program at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove. She lost her advisor job in 2002 after her students wrote editorials criticizing filthy bathrooms and bad cafeteria food.
Ewell, now an English teacher at the school, said Saturday that she sympathized with school administrators, many of whom are under pressure to make their schools look good. "They don't want any bump in their public relations image," she said.
But the bottom line, Ewell said, is that student newspapers are not publicity newsletters for school principals. And she hopes the new law will ensure that stories are published, regardless of how they may be perceived.
"It's wonderful to see that people care about 1st Amendment rights and care about protecting students' rights," she said.
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robert.lopez@latimes.com
