For Hatchet Job Creators, Victory Keeps Its Edge

A year ago, Daniel Gluesenkamp and Philip Tiso were celebrities, central figures in an acrimonious battle at Fallbrook High School over an underground newspaper they published.

The rebellious tone of the 12-page tabloid, dubbed The Hatchet Job, just was not the sort of thing that played well in Fallbrook, an isolated town of 27,000 populated by avocado growers and retired Marines. Gluesenkamp and Tiso were promptly suspended by school authorities angered over the publication, which they deemed libelous and obscene.

But the students struck back.

With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the two fledgling publishers sued the district for $11.1 million, charging that their First Amendment rights to free speech had been violated. Ultimately, the legal battle was settled and the students received an apology from district officials and $22,000.

Today, the pair recall their victory and grin.

“It was an experience I look back on and laugh mostly,” said Tiso, 19. “I was pretty proud of what happened, that we fought the school, which is something no one ever does.”

Gluesenkamp agreed, but suggested that the victory really did little to change attitudes in Fallbrook.

“I learned a lot about people, about people in Fallbrook especially,” he said. “People there recognized the fact that the court supported us, but they didn’t recognize the fact that the school was wrong. Most of them felt we should have been taken out to the woodshed and spanked.”

Instead, the two teen-agers took their winnings and ran, heading off to college like many of their peers. After graduating from Fallbrook High last June, both enrolled in UC Santa Cruz.

For Gluesenkamp, 18, it’s been an enlightening experience. He’s taking courses in physics, calculus and music. And he’s enjoyed living in a community where his liberal views on life are more readily accepted.

“It’s a really different environment than Fallbrook,” Gluesenkamp said. “It’s a lot more open . . . And it’s also more liberal. Probably the most radical thing I could do here would be to wear a suit and tie.”

Tiso’s college experience was far less harmonious. After one term, he dropped out, saying he didn’t enjoy life on campus.

In particular, Tiso said he realized Santa Cruz was not for him when his roommate, a voracious drug user, went berserk the second day of the second quarter and had to be locked up by mental health officials until the youth’s parents arrived from Ohio.

“Now, I’m looking for a job and looking for another school to go to,” said Tiso, who recently returned home to Fallbrook. “I’d like a newspaper job, anything really. Just a job to get some experience.”

At Fallbrook High, meanwhile, all is quiet, and Principal Henry Woessner admits he likes it that way. Any problems caused by The Hatchet Job “left with the students” who published it, Woessner said.

“It’s long gone,” Woessner said. “The interest of students in it was not sustained for any length of time. Kids here have a lot of interests, and I don’t think that was one of the major ones.”

Indeed, students at the high school seem more interested in savoring the varsity football team’s recent victory in the county championship game, while parents, teachers and administrators are gearing up for the high school’s upcoming accreditation review.

But hold your breath. Yet another Hatchet Job may be on the horizon.

Gluesenkamp’s younger brother, Andrew, plans to take up where his sibling left off.

A 16-year-old junior aiming to attend UC Berkeley, Andy Gluesenkamp and a friend recently put together The Hatchet Job 4, but abandoned the project after 80 copies were printed because they were displeased with the results. The edition was never distributed to the Fallbrook High student body.

Undeterred, the younger Gluesenkamp said he now plans to spend his Easter vacation collecting articles, poems and cartoons for The Hatchet Job 4 1/2.

While the new edition will favor the anti-war leanings of its predecessors, it will likely prove far more palatable to the high school’s administrators, he said.

“We still want to make people aware of the military presence around here,” Andy said. “But it ought to be pretty well-rounded. It won’t be as harsh as past Hatchet Jobs. We used to have two or three writers who had some biting things to say. But they’re out of school now.”