Sacramento school suspends journalism adviser after student paper printed Hitler quote

The Sacramento City Unified School District has placed C.K. McClatchy High School’s journalism adviser on paid administrative leave after its student newspaper printed a quote praising Adolf Hitler — a suspension that experts said flew in the face of California press freedoms.

“They have the right to print it,” said Steve O’Donoghue, director of the California Scholastic Journalism Initiative. “They’re not advocating for it, they’re just quoting what a student said.”

During the suspension, adviser Samantha Archuleta has been ordered not to go on the Land Park campus or communicate with her students.

On April 25, students published in The Prospector, McClatchy High’s student-led newspaper, a list feature titled “What did you say?” The list comprised nine statements purportedly overheard on campus.

The final quote in the list — which the newspaper said was made by a student in government class and which Archuleta later said was heard by an editor outside a classroom — was “Hitler had some good ideas.”

The student journalists said in a written statement, “We wanted to acknowledge and raise the question: Why are kids on campus saying things like this? It’s deeply concerning that these remarks are being said on campus without proper action from staff.”

They also expressed regret over the wording of the column, whose introduction said the list contained “some of our favorites” of “the weirdest stuff” heard on campus.

“We recognize the impact of our words do not match the intent, and this has impacted a lot of individuals,” the students wrote, “especially when addressing the sensitive issue of antisemitism.”

A spokesperson for the Sacramento City Teachers Association, the union that represents Archuleta, was not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman for the Sacramento City Unified School District said Wednesday that he was unable to comment on a personnel matter.

Outrage followed by a suspension that may be ‘unlawful’

The school’s principal, Andrea Egan, called the remark offensive in an autodial message sent Sunday to parents and the school community. Egan plans to meet with members of Congregation B’nai Israel on Thursday after members of the Jewish congregation met privately on Sunday to discuss the matter.

Jay Schenirer, a former city councilman and a member of B’nai Israel, characterized his ongoing private discussions with Egan as “very positive.”

“We’re trying to figure out how to make this into a teachable moment for everyone involved,” Schenirer said Wednesday.

He said that the congregation had not called for the teacher to be disciplined: “We wouldn’t go there. That’s up to the school district and the school.”

Egan also said she met with the journalism students the day after the paper was published “and shared with them the importance of exercising good judgment in their editorial decision-making. ... Words have the power to cause harm.”

The district’s human resources department listed a failure to exercise good judgment as one of the reasons for the paid suspension, Archuleta said in an interview Wednesday. She was also told that she was being suspended because she had allegedly expressed insensitive comments, shared confidential student information and failed to maintain a harassment-free classroom environment.

Archuleta said that the district did not tie the allegations against her to the quote or its fallout, and that when she asked the HR representative on the phone whether the suspension was related to the paper’s publication of the Hitler comment, the representative just restated the vague charges.

She said she was surprised when she got the call: “I thought they understood the law.”

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said the district’s move appeared to violate free speech protections for student journalists.

“Under California law, lawmakers have made clear that student editors are the ones that get to make the content decisions,” Hiestand said. “California passed this law that specifically says that advisors cannot be retaliated against for basically following the law and for allowing students to exercise editorial judgment.”

In Archuleta’s case, he said, “Taking action against her — I understand she’s on disciplinary leave or something like that — that’s clearly unlawful under California law.”

What’s worse — the quote or its publication?

The German dictator Adolf Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust, a genocidal campaign during World War II that persecuted and systematically murdered Jewish people as well as others, including the Roma, the Slavs, people with disabilities and gay people. Six million Jewish people were murdered under Hitler’s Nazi regime.

The comment that he had “some good ideas” was presented in the paper without context beyond its inclusion on the list of outrageous and often inappropriate comments made on campus.

Archuleta said that before publication, the editors had discussed how they wanted to publish the feature as a list, because most students don’t read long articles. She said that, looking back on it now, they see that they could have added more context to the comment about Hitler.

She said, more concerningly, she was alarmed that school administrators seemed more concerned about what was printed in the newspaper than they were about a student praising Hitler on campus.

“The kids say that they hear things like this daily on our campus,” she said, “without any accountability or consequences.”