Members of the Spring ’05 East Bakersfield High School journalism class are continuing in their fight to get stories focusing on homosexuality published in their school paper, The Kernal.
EBHS Principal John Gibson told Kernal students that the articles on homosexuality could not be published in their April edition because they would create a danger for the students interviewed.
The issue has drawn national attention and raised questions about censorship in high school newspapers.
Spring ’05 Kernal students Joel Paramo, Maria Krauter and Travis Mattias along with the Gay Straight Alliance Network and two of the gay students interviewed in the stories – Rudy Cachu and Janet Rangel – sued back in the spring in an attempt to force the Kern High School District and East High administration to allow stories written for their April ’05 Focus section to see the light of day in The Kernal.
Krauter, the former focus editor and current editor-in-chief of The Kernal, said the students who were interviewed felt excited about the stories. “They felt it was time to tell people how they feel and what they’re up against,” Krauter said.
Randy Hamm, adviser of The Kernal, said about seven gay students and some parents were interviewed. “One of those articles was just sort of a general piece,” he said. “Another one was a specific mother and daughter, and the daughter’s experience of what it was like to tell her mom for the first time. How she is treated on campus, what her life is like.”
He said the principal had a meeting with the student editors in which they reached a compromise to publish the stories with the students’ names taken out. Hamm added that the students, rather than lose their paper entirely, agreed to censor the names. According to Hamm, later that night during publication, the principal came in and told the editors to remove the stories altogether.
Student editors ultimately appealed the principal’s decision to the district office. Their appeal was denied. While the appeals process was ongoing, one of the students from The Kernal contacted the GSA, who then contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, who is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
Hamm said the principal is acting on the information he has. “Now, clearly, had I thought it would have been a danger to the students I would have told the (Kernal) students in the first place, and they would have taken a different course,” he said.
Kernal students had each of the student’s parents sign a form that gave their permission for their child to be interviewed.
“This was done to protect my students because we learned that privacy is a family matter for minors, and if you choose to come ‘out’ in the school newspaper, your parents could still sue the paper for invasion of privacy,” Hamm said.
He said students of The Kernal interviewed people who were already “quite vocal and open about their preference.”
Hamm said there was also an article with a couple of students who don’t think it is OK to be gay, a background piece on where homosexuality comes from and a statistical piece.
Kern High School District Public Information Officer John Teves said the district is not commenting at this time because of the pending litigation.
In court documents obtained by The Rip, EBHS Principal John Gibson, in a letter written to Joel Paramo, The Kernal’s Spring editor in chief, said, “Education Code section 48907 specifically provides that students do not have a free speech right to publish material in official publications like The Kernal that ‘so incites students as to create a clear and present danger of the commission of unlawful acts on school premises or the violation of lawful school regulations, or the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school.’
In the letter, Gibson also said “this is not a free speech issue; it is about maintaining the safety of individual students, and a campus that is safe, secure and orderly.”
Further in the letter, Gibson said, “during lunch on April 29, 2005, several students demonstrating silently in support of publication were targeted with debris thrown from a crowd of other students. Numerous students in the crowd shouted ‘fag,’ ‘get those fags’ and other derogatory terms associated with homosexuality, as well as, ‘let’s kill them,’ and let’s kill them all.”
He also said in the letter “only a small group of students know the sexual orientation or transgender status of those interviewed. The day your article is published, 2,100 student will know, and through them, the greater community in which those interviewed live,” Gibson said in his letter to Paramo.
Krauter said the students interviewed were “out” already and most people at East High knew who they were.
She said papers in Los Angeles have offered to publish The Kernal’s stories. “We feel the point of our lawsuit is they should be allowed to be published in our paper,” Krauter said. “I feel very much that they should be published in The Kernal because they are our stories. We feel strongly that this is something that should not be censored.”
Krauter said this issue has opened up a dialogue within the community of Bakersfield.
Krauter said if The Kernal is allowed to publish, she would hope it would be by the November issue. The Kernal is published monthly.
Their request for an emergency injunction to prohibit the school from censoring the articles was denied back in May. The judge said the articles are not time sensitive and wants a full hearing. A hearing date has not been set.
Paramo and Mattias are no longer on The Kernal, but they are still involved in the lawsuit. Paramo graduated and is a BC student, and Mattias, although still at East High, could not fit The Kernal into his schedule.