Don Patrick Nicholson v. Board of Education Torrance Unified School District

This appeal results from an action filed by plaintiff and appellant Don Patrick Nicholson in which he alleged that his employment as a high school journalism teacher was terminated wrongfully as a result of constitutionally protected action he took as his school’s newspaper advisor. The United States District Court for the Central District of California rendered judgment for the defendants on the ground that Nicholson had failed to establish that his rights under the first amendment were infringed. We agree and therefore affirm.

I. FACTS

Appellant, Don Patrick Nicholson, was employed as a probationary teacher of journalism at Torrance High School from September 1968 until termination of his employment in May 1970. During the course of his two years of employment, which included service as the advisor to the school-sponsored newspaper, Nicholson became involved in a series of disputes with school officials regarding publication of certain articles. These articles concerned a number of controversial subjects including a feature story on minority unrest in a local community, an article on police-student relations and a critical commentary on the school’s treatment of the fifth…