Journalism students at Ballard High School say a proposal in front of the Seattle School Board violates their first amendment rights. They say the ?new policy would remove student responsibility for content and set the stage for administrative censorship.? The proposal, which was introduced at the last School Board meeting, gives school principals the right to review student newspapers before they?re published.
Kate Clark, the editor-in-chief of the Ballard Talisman, and Katie Kennedy, the managing editor, are furious at the proposal. On Friday, the duo spent their afternoon plastering downtown Ballard with these fliers (.pdf).
From the flier:
CURRENT POLICY: Students have the right to FREEDOM OF THE PRESS and may express their personal opinions in writing. They must take full responsibility for the content of their publications by identifying themselves as authors and or editors of the publication. They are not allowed to make personal attacks or publish libelous or obscene material. ?Seattle Public Schools Student Rights and Responsibilities 2011-2012
PROPOSED POLICY: The principal may request to review any copy prior to its publication. Material must be free of content that: runs counter to the instructional program; is libelous; obscene or profane; contains threats of violence towards a person; invades a person?s privacy; demeans any race, religion, sex, or ethnic group; advocates the violation of the law or school rule; advertises the tobacco products, liquor, illicit drugs, or drug paraphernalia; materially and substantially disrupts the operations of the school; or, is inappropriate for the maturity level of the students. ?Superintendent Procedure 3220SP
The students currently work with an adult adviser on the Talisman, and they can print whatever they want, using journalistic best-practices. They believe that if the proposed changes are approved, 80 percent of their content would be cut. ?We challenge a lot of the things that happen,? Clark says. ?We don?t want that right to challenge authority to be taken away from us.?
Students do have free expression, Teresa Wippel with Seattle Public School says, but the district can regulate some of what they write. This is a way, Wippel tells us, for the district to have a uniform policy on student publications. After checking with the district attorney, she says that because the students are working on school grounds, using school resources, this proposal is well within their rights on the state and federal level.
The Superintendent Procedure 3220SP states:
The Superintendent is authorized to develop guidelines assuring that students are able to enjoy free expression of opinion while mantaining orderly conduct of the school.
In order for a student publication or speech to be restricted for causing a material and substantial disruption, there must exist specific facts upon which it would be reasonable to forecast that a clear and present likelihood of an immediate substantial disruption to normal school activity would occur if the material were published and distributed. Material and substatial disruption includes, but is not necessarily limited to: student riots; destruction of propoerty; widespread shouting or boisterous conduct; or substantial student participation in a school boycott, sit in, stand-in, walk-out or other form of activity.
?The idea is, obviously, we want to educate future journalists on their rights and responsibilities,? Wippel says.
?How are we supposed to learn to be responsible when we?re not given responsibility in the first place?? Kennedy says.
Clark and Kennedy are encouraging community members to attend the next School Board meeting on Nov. 16. Wippel tells us that action will be taken on Dec. 7.
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On one hand, student newspapers are not “private enterprise” and are funded by taxpayer dollars, so it is not “their money” that is being used to publish.
On the other hand, you have to give the students some rope and yes, even let them hang themselves from time to time, as this is part of “learning” too.
A tough call but overall, less censorship is better in a society that values “freedom of speech”.
I was the editor of my high school newspaper in the Midwest, and we published an article or two that irritated the principal.
I have mixed feelings about the policy. On one hand, freedom of the press belongs to the publisher, not the editors or the writers. Harsh, but true. He who pays for the ink and the paper makes the rules. The “3220SP” rule is reasonable, and arguably necessary in a day and age when the lawyers and courts demand consistent policies rather than granting discretion to administrators .
On the other hand, as a practical and policy matter, a student newspaper should be granted maximum latitude. When I was the editor, final decisions rested with the teacher who was our journalism advisor. He was a smart guy who liked kids and understood our angst, and was able to use the powers of persuasion in an effective way.
Perhaps most importantly, there was no Internet when I was in high school. This has very much changed the game when it comes to communication within schools. At the end of the day, can an administration really “censor” anything? Of course, this cuts both ways; perhaps the idea of preserving “maximum latitude” for the school paper is anachronistic at a time when it’s so easy for any student, or group of students, to become their own publisher.
All speech is regulated, whether by libel laws or court opinions. These kids need to remember one thing….they are still kids and need supervision whether they like it or not.
I think it’s way too glib to declare that “all speech is regulated,” and therefore kids’ speech can be regulated at any time.
For starters, it’s not really true. In the United States there is no legal prior restraint on free speech. You can face consequences afterwards, i.e. civil defamation or invasion oif privacy actions, or (in extremely rare cases) criminal prosecution for incitement. But that’s only after the speech. The school district, which has now backed off its proposal, wanted to impose prior restraint through the principals.
To me, this was always a matter of the school district exercising its control as the publisher of Ballard’s high school paper. I think it had every right to exercise that control, but I also think the proposal was heavy-handed. Better to exercise control through the faculty advisers, who are closer to the kids. And, as I wrote earlier, this is all considerably superceded by the parallel and much larger informal channels: texting and the Internet. Those places, not the school paper, are where the real action is among today’s youth.