California’s legislature approved a bill Tuesday that would make it illegal to dismiss, transfer, or discipline student-newspaper advisers who are trying to protect the free-speech rights of their students, according to the Associated Press.

The legislation now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who hasn’t said whether he will sign the bill into law, the AP reported. The bill comes two years after a law was put into place to prohibit public-college officials from censoring student publications. That law was passed on the heals of a 2005 federal-court ruling that university officials could exercise the same authority to censor student publications as high-school administrators.

The University of California had said it was not likely to adopt provisions of the newest legislation, because they were potentially problematic. But the system recently changed its position after further talks with lawmakers. —Elyse Ashburn