A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge has allowed a lawsuit over alleged free-press violations at Mountain View High School to proceed to trial, court records show.
The case, filed in 2024, claims that the former principal interfered with a student newspaper story about sexual harassment between students. California’s 1977 Student Free Expression law bars school officials from meddling with student publications unless the content is obscene, libelous, slanderous or incites violence.
Legal analysts note a parallel dispute in San Francisco, where a journalism adviser was removed after publishing controversial material at Lowell High School. A judge later ordered his reinstatement, showing the law’s reach. The law is clear in its protection of student expression.
The Mountain View complaint alleges that former principal Kip Glazer instructed student reporters to keep coverage “uplifting” and to present the school “in a positive light.” It also says Glazer dismissed the newspaper adviser, Carla Gomez, and installed the drama teacher in her place.
Attorney Jordyn Ostroff, representing Gomez and the former students, wrote that Glazer told the team they were “lucky to have a journalism program, that most administrators didn’t want to have the bother,” and that “journalists should uplift the school.” The filing cites multiple “highly unusual” visits by Glazer to the The Oracle classroom as evidence of a pre-publication pressure campaign. These visits suggest that Glazer was closely monitoring the students’ work.
