Fallbrook High Pair Win 1st Amendment Fight : School Pays for Giving Student Paper the Ax

It seemed like it would be fun, publishing an underground newspaper for high school students in this quiet town. So Daniel Gluesenkamp did just that. Then, stealing onto campus one pre-dawn Monday, he dropped the finished product on benches, posted it on bulletin boards--anywhere it would be seen--and waited for the jaws to drop.

As quickly as the Hatchet Job appeared, Gluesenkamp disappeared, suspended from Fallbrook High School for five days by campus officials who decided that his newspaper was obscene and libelous. The next day, Philip Tiso, a Hatchet Job writer, was suspended for two days.

Now, 18 months later, Gluesenkamp and Tiso are preparing to graduate and start college with a nest egg of $5,000 each--money won in their legal battle with the Fallbrook Union High School District.

Fallbrook is about 50 miles northeast of San Diego, separated from the Pacific Ocean by lush slopes laced by streets with names such as Sleeping Indian and North River Road. If you miss the single exit off Interstate 15, you miss Fallbrook.

Home of Tom Metzger

Before the Hatchet Job, this city of about 15,000 was best known as the home of Tom Metzger, former state leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The Hatchet Job brought a different brand of notoriety to Fallbrook.

In an out-of-court settlement reached in February, the school district agreed to pay Tiso and Gluesenkamp $22,000, clear their suspensions from the records, apologize to them and sponsor a one-day workshop on freedom of speech.

Tiso and Gluesenkamp in return agreed to drop claims totaling $9.6 million against the district and to drop their lawsuit, which alleged that the school district violated their constitutional right of free speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Tiso and Gluesenkamp in court, received $6,000 for legal fees. The students donated another $6,000 to the ACLU, leaving them each with $5,000. Not a bad ending for what began as an innocent diversion, Gluesenkamp said.

“I felt there wasn’t any place where students could say their feelings, other than on the homecoming game and things like that. Deeper feelings, stuff they thought someone might disapprove of,” Gluesenkamp said. “That’s part of the reason I did the Hatchet Job. I thought Fallbrook High needed it, which I found out was fairly true from the reaction of the school. But partly I just thought it would be something fun to do.”

Teacher Opinion Poll

The first Hatchet Job, published in the fall of 1984, included a movie and a book review, a comic strip criticizing U.S. involvement in Central America and a teacher opinion poll with ratings ranging from “cruelty” to “would like to have as a parent.”

But it was a two-paragraph think piece and a photo caption that raised the ire of Fallbrook High School Principal Hank Woessner.

The caption ran under a photograph of then-Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell, school board President Wayne Miller and Congressman Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad). It said the three were completing a drug transaction.

The think piece, aimed at student apathy, consisted of a series of words and phrases strung together and included references to sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and politics.

As with all Hatchet Job articles, the piece was written under a pseudonym, in this case ‘Ol Pappy Smeer. It did not take Woessner long to figure out who was involved in the newspaper. He traced a post office box to Gluesenkamp and soon discovered that Tiso had written the think piece and picture caption.

Although more than a dozen students participated in the Hatchet Job, only Gluesenkamp and Tiso were disciplined.

Woessner said that is because none of the other contributors were involved in wrongdoing.

Tiso and Gluesenkamp appealed to the school board to clear the suspensions from their records. After two refusals, attorney Rob DeKoven stepped in.

First Amendment Violation

“It was probably the worst, most egregious case involving violation of students’ First Amendment rights by a school district,” said DeKoven, who is in private practice and volunteers his services to the ACLU.

The students filed a claim against the school district on Christmas Eve in 1984, alleging violation of their First Amendment rights. The school district then filed suit against Tiso and Gluesenkamp, asking the court to declare that the district had not violated the students’ rights and seeking court costs. That prompted a countersuit by the students, DeKoven said.

During the following months, efforts to reach an out-of-court settlement failed.

“We thought we were close to a settlement during the summer, but the students wanted an apology, which wasn’t appropriate,” Woessner said. “There was no reason to apologize.”

Then, last December, Vista Superior Court Judge Larry Kapiloff ruled that the school district had violated the state’s Education Code by suspending Tiso and Gluesenkamp without trying alternative ways of discipline.

Within two months, the school board settled. Sacramento attorney Andrea Miller said the trustees agreed to the settlement solely to avoid having to pay additional legal fees to the students. The money was not meant to cover damages, she said.

Miller, the school board president, said he was disappointed by the outcome and would have welcomed an appeal of the judge’s ruling if it would not have led to an endless court fight.

“I felt the board responsibility is to foster a sound education program, not to challenge the ACLU, Judge Kapiloff or any of their supporters,” Miller said. “I have to look at this in two roles. As an individual, I have nothing but criticism for Judge Kapiloff and for those who supported these two students. I don’t agree that the First Amendment guarantees this sort of expression. But as a trustee who’s responsible for the well-being of this district, I must acknowledge Mr. Kapiloff’s decision.”

Tiso and Gluesenkamp said they will use their money to pay for college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, they are working on putting out their third Hatchet Job. A second issue of the newspaper, put out last year, was deemed acceptable by school officials.

“Things turned out better than I expected,” Gluesenkamp said. “I was surprised they gave us a settlement we’d accept. All the way along, they were saying things like, ‘We’ll forget if you’ll forget.’ But we wanted an apology. They’re not sorry, but they apologized.”