Student-Written Anti-Hate Speech Bill Presented : Legislation: Recent O.C. graduates tell Senate panel that racist comments at school prompted them to try to change the law. But legislators send it to be reworded.

By ALICIA DI RADO

June 30, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — Two recent Huntington Beach High School graduates told state legislators Wednesday that school administrators must be given the power to punish students who use offensive language against their classmates.

Brandy Marks and Joshua Holland, both African Americans who graduated earlier this month, told members of the Senate Education Committee that they were angry about the racist speech on their former campus and frustrated that there appeared to be little administrators could do to stop it.

They asked legislators to pass a bill that they helped write, which would make it easier for principals to discipline students who say or write offensive statements that could incite other students to react with violence.

“There’s so much that goes on on a school campus anyway,” Marks told committee members at a hearing on educational issues. “When you’re called obscene names, it makes it even harder.”

Holland told legislators that he had been called derogatory names by other students but had felt powerless to fight back. He said gay and lesbian students have had more success at being protected from hate speech than other minority students, which he believes isn’t fair.

“They say it’s sexual harassment. But what’s the difference between sexual harassment and regular harassment?” he said.

Marks pleaded with lawmakers to pass the bill so that minority students could focus on learning instead of being on guard against offensive comments.

“There’s just too much going on at school already to take this type of pressure coming down on you. . . , “ she said.

After a short debate, legislators decided to send the bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), to a judiciary committee so lawmakers can reword it.

Marks, 18, and Holland, 17, were among about a half-dozen African-American students at Huntington Beach High who were angered by racist flyers that were dumped in a campus parking lot twice last year. They went to their principal’s office to demand action.

But Principal Jim Staunton told them he felt constrained by state law. When he examined the state education code, Staunton said later, he found only a section that allows administrators to punish students for acts “disruptive to the school environment” but does not specifically address acts that denigrate people for their race, creed, gender or other characteristics.

So Staunton, Marks, Holland and several other students decided to try to change the law. Teachers helped the students draft a resolution against hate crimes and speech, and Staunton approached Allen to ask that its ideas be used to amend the state education code.

“I’m very, very proud of the manner in which they handled this,” Allen said of the students’ legislative efforts. Offensive speech “creates an environment that is incompatible with the nature and intentions of our public school system.”

Allen’s legislation would amend the education code to include a section that allows administrators to suspend or expel any student who orally or through writing tries to incite a “lawless action.”

That language spurred debate at Wednesday’s hearing.

Francisco Lobaco, American Civil Liberties Union legislative director in Sacramento, told legislators he is concerned that the bill is vague and possibly limits the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. He also said the bill, as written, does not specifically accomplish what the students set out to do.

“The resulting bill has very little to do with comments made by the students,” Lobaco said. “The bill doesn’t define what ‘lawless action’ is.”

Sen. Tom Campbell (R-Los Altos) said he was concerned that the language violated free speech rights and recommended that it be sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it likely will be heard next week.

“If you put something in that’s insufficiently clear, some people will be afraid to use their speech rights,” Campbell said.

But Cecelia Williams, a retired Los Angeles Unified School District psychologist and spectator at the hearing, disagreed.

“Somebody ought to do something about this going on in schools,” Williams said, praising Holland and Marks. “You can’t just walk around and let people say things to you that are not right.”