School Paper Meets Censorship Head On : Journalism: Muir High editors think students should know about a district official’s trial. They object to administrators censoring ‘negative’ stories.

First they were scolded. Then they were censored. Now the student newspaper staff at John Muir High School in Pasadena is waiting to see if a new confrontation will develop with its principal over publishing future stories about the trial of a district official.

The dispute between the monthly newspaper, the Blazer, and Principal Gary Talbert began after the paper ran an article in November about a misdemeanor charge pending against Charles Parcell, who is security chief for the Pasadena Unified School District.

Parcell, a former principal of Blair High School, has been charged with a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report for claiming that a $1,800 school computer was missing. Police later recovered the computer from the district’s security office.

In a Nov. 13 story, the newspaper rankled the principal and other school administrators because it noted that Parcell’s wife, Anne, runs Muir’s student store. While describing the article as thorough and balanced, Talbert said its reference to Anne Parcell unnecessarily upset her and others at the school.

“(Parcell’s) wife is a valued and trusted employee,” Talbert told the Pasadena Star-News at the time. “We’re like a family (on campus), and I felt it just brought more attention to what was already painful.”

After that article, Talbert decided to review the paper’s Dec. 18 follow-up on Parcell--a story that mentioned his not guilty plea and pretrial hearing Jan. 11.

Deciding that the article did not have any important new information, Talbert told the paper’s editors that he did not want it published. Although they went ahead with publication, the article on Parcell was unreadable because the paper’s editors ran the word Censored across the story.

Senior Tamra Boyd, who wrote the stories and is news editor of the Blazer, said she would like to write about Parcell’s next court appearance but fears that any story will be censored.

Talbert’s next move remains unclear, and he has not returned phone calls for an interview.

In censoring the paper, however, Talbert cited a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court case, Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier, in which the court ruled that school officials do not violate students’ First Amendment rights when they censor school publications.

But senior Marisa Loessen, a co-editor who will write an opinion piece on censorship in next month’s issue, said her research shows that the California Education Code limits officials’ powers to censor.

Some others contacted by The Times also questioned Talbert’s action.

Attorney Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition said the state Education Code allows officials to censor only articles that are obscene, libelous, slanderous or likely to incite students to the point of a “clear and present danger” on campus.

Francke also said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling cited by Talbert does not override the state law. “Protection here is derived from the state Legislature’s law, not the First Amendment,” Francke said in an interview.

Added Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington: “It is pretty clearly a violation of the Education Code for the principal to censor for this.”

But Talbert’s action, like the paper’s stories, remains a matter of some debate on campus.

Boyd said she was told by school administrators that “the newspaper should not publish negative stories and (that) mentioning Mrs. Parcell (by name) was spiteful.”

Senior and Co-Editor Elizabeth Choi also said she was berated by administrators who told her that although they could not control what is printed in outside newspapers, the school should not allow negative stories to be published in the campus paper.

Choi strongly disagrees. “If something is happening in the Pasadena Unified School District, students should have a right to know,” she said.

School board member Anne Pursel said the positive side of the Muir debate is that it may prompt the Board of Education to revise the district’s free speech code. The 1972 code allows censorship of publications distributed on campus.

Meantime, Loessen said the newspaper staff will wait to see what Talbert does when the paper follows Parcell’s court appearance. And if Talbert’s actions exceed those allowed under the state Education Code, she said, the staff will review its options.