The Los Angeles Unified School District no longer plans to suspend Daniel Pearl Magnet High School journalism teacher and magazine adviser Adriana Chavira as originally planned following an outpouring of support from media associations and the family of the slain journalist whose name adorns the school.
A hearing officer accepted Chavira’s appeal of the suspension Sept. 16 but did not provide a reason, Chavira said in an interview.
“It is definitely a great sense of relief,” she said. “This has dragged on way too long. It should have never happened.”
Chavira faced a three-day suspension — and potential termination — for refusing to remove the name of an unvaccinated librarian from an article in the Pearl Post, the student-run magazine at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Lake Balboa. The story, written and edited by students, reported on the closure of the school’s library due to the teacher-librarian Greta Enszer’s decision not to follow LAUSD’s vaccination mandate.
Chavira was ordered to remove the name and warned she could face discipline for insubordination if she did not comply. The administration accused her of disclosing confidential information and cited the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, a law protecting the release of an individual’s health information by medical providers, insurers and health plan administrators.
The magazine adviser left the decision up to her students. They decided to leave the article up after meeting with an attorney with the Student Press Law Center.
“The information was newsworthy and it was definitely not libelous,” Chavira said.
California’s Education Code explicitly provides student publications with freedom of the press, regardless of whether the district funds their work. The same state law further bars schools from dismissing, suspending, disciplining or transferring an employee for protecting a pupil exercising that freedom.
Pressure from the journalism community and Daniel Pearl’s family helped with her fight, she said. Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter captured and killed while on assignment in Pakistan. His father, Judea Pearl, the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, joined with more than a dozen journalism organizations to call on LAUSD to reconsider the disciplinary action.
Following the reversal, Chavira said she hopes the attention brought to the topic will raise awareness about student journalists’ rights at other school districts in California.
“I want them to know they do have a right on campus to publish what they want, as long as they do solid reporting,” she said. “I also hope that advisers are willing to stick up for their students and not just follow what administrators want in their publications.”
Only about 20 states in the country have laws supporting student publications, Chavira said.
“We definitely need more states to give these protections to student journalists,” she said.