Rarely do Stanford and University of California, Berkeley, share things in common. But in the case of James Wheaton, his popularity as the professor of journalism law at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is unaffected by his work at Stanford.
Wheaton is a First Amendment lawyer, which generally means he works with a lot of activists and journalists. But Wheaton himself doesn’t have a history of journalism past high school.
“I entered [high school] as a standard issue jock,” said Wheaton. But this really only lasted through his freshman year. “I was also a kid who read a lot. I was really good at math, and I just sailed over the top of all my classes, which was not a welcomed quality in the football locker room.”
At the end of freshman year, he found his new calling.
“In the spring of that year, we were in the lunchroom, and there was an announcement about tryouts for a play,” said Wheaton. “It was a student-run play, student-written and student-run, so it was going to be a little more experimental, and I got basically dared to try out.”
After cold reading for a part, he was given the role of the narrator, Mr. Franchisesque. Trading in the locker room for a single dressing room and the burly boys for a co-ed group of rebellious teens, he joined the “theater kids”—fitting right in.
By senior year, he was editor of the school newspaper, and was about to graduate and leave the editorials behind. That year, he had only one true instance of First Amendment scuffling in his journalism experience.
Prior to CRT (Critical Race Theory), white PTA mothers were still storming into school offices, demanding their child’s education be more aligned with their religious and moral values. When Wheaton’s own aunt took her concerns to his school’s administration, he took pen to paper. What was published was a scathing article about how the new complaint “inspired” him to look for other books that encouraged rebellion. He wrote about one book in particular’s constant use of violence and improprieties and named it at the end: the Bible. Yes, he and his aunt did stop speaking to each other after that.
Of the handful of his graduating class members who sought out colleges on the East Coast, he was the one to be admitted to an Ivy—Brown. Unfortunately, he was as unprepared as a suburban kid from rural Minnesota could be at an Ivy League school, and ended up on academic probation. This drove him to be more intentional with planning his schedule. He decided that in order to figure out what he wanted to do with his life by junior year, he would need to try out everything he was interested in—his college counselor called him “intellectually greedy.”
By the end of the two years, he was still at a loss. He had joined the theater season at Brown, taking the only student-paid job of assistant tech director, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pursue a career in it. Like all students are told to do, though he did so of his own accord, he did his research and spoke to people in the business.
“I realized if I want to get into lighting design, for instance, that’s an itinerant life, constantly moving to the next place,” said Wheaton.
In 1977, he left behind the typical college experience, as well as his theater job. That one year ended up turning into two.
For those next two years, he lived with high school friends, working for Meals on Wheels until his friend needed a ride to an executive meeting for the board of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), an activist-type group run by students, with chapters across campuses. The friend brought Wheaton with him, opening the door he needed to find his next passion. Diving into organizing and public activism, Wheaton ran his first press conference for the Minnesota PIRG at age 20, on dangerous toys for kids.
One year later, he was elected chair of the board, which that same friend had been next in line for. This provided him with a nice wage and an office. At 21, he was running the organization, supported by a team of professionals who kept him from making wrong turns, and was involved in the creation of the national PIRG, which he also became chair of.
At some point in the second year, he made a connection that would change the course of his life. On an excursion with the disabled boys’ home where he worked, to the wilderness that borders Minnesota and Canada, he found himself accidentally networking.
“The guy who was the guide told me who his brother was, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God! Chuck? Chuck D’s your brother?’” said Wheaton.
It was the motherload for him, as “Chuck D” was the only environmental lawyer in Minnesota at the time, and Wheaton had been especially appreciative of the work the lawyers at PIRG did for the disabled boys’ home.
“[The lawyers at PIRG] were super smart. They could do really clever stuff,” said Wheaton, “and they were always playing [within] the rules. It was really interesting to me.”
Wheaton ended up taking the lawyer to lunch, where he asked those cursed questions that college and career counseling informationals always tell one to use—the “What exactly do you do?” and “How do I do that, too?” and “Who else should I ask?” type of questions.
So his career goal was officially in focus; he planned to be a public interest lawyer.
He put in his last two years at Brown (environmental degree), took the LSATs, went to law school at UC Berkeley’s School of Law for three years, did a clerkship for RDC, then stayed on so he could continue his involvement. He went to the lawyers and asked what they needed a paper on, then chose an aligning law course that would allow him to do their paper for his final—killing two birds with one stone, which seemed like a simple maneuver for lawyers.
When he became a fellow at the RDC’s Public Advocates Office in San Francisco, he started shifting away from environmental law, despite having worked at environmental activism organizations and planning to practice environmental law.
He was placed in uncomfortable situations, and had to maintain control. Sent in on a situation that had already been creating issues for years prior, he represented the female San Francisco Police Department officers and officers of color against white police officials at a time when the department’s integration “efforts” were minimal. Yet even in the room with such hot personalities, he kept them in check and easily slid into a role of authority—whether he wanted to or not.
“I had all these advantages,” said Wheaton. “Look, I was born as a white male in a stable neighborhood, with good schools, in a stable family, and never wanted for food or shelter. I know how much of my success is luck, most of it, but I [also had] vowed to make a lifestyle choice back then.”
The impact he’s had on other people and on the environment is the fruit of his use of authority. Though he rebuked his mother’s religion at a young age, he’s always held onto her teaching that “to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Now he’s a respected law professor at Berkeley and Stanford (teaching since 1999), whose Indiana Jones-like appeal (and the hat to top it off) keeps students entertained and better-educated. He’s the founder of a public interest law firm called First Amendment Project.
He’s started or been involved in numerous public interest and environmental organizations and recently was given the career achievement award as the second-ever, non-journalism professional by the Society of Professional Journalists NorCal. And to top it off, he runs his own Burning Man camp and welcomes his students at his Sonoma property for river rafting.
