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Students face prior restraint after controversial ‘sex issue’
June 19, 2006
CALIFORNIA
— High school students in Whittier say their principal is not allowing
them to publish the June issue of their student newspaper as punishment for their May issue, which
focused on sex.
The May issue
of The Freelancer, the student
newspaper at La Serna High School, included a center spread devoted to
discussing student opinions on sex. The spread included a sexually suggestive
photo (not of students), an interview with a pregnant student and a survey that,
among other things, found that 41 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds reported being
sexually active.
The package also included a word search
that included sex-related terms on a
separate page.
The “sex issue,” as it has come to be
known, elicited complaints from faculty and parents alike who co-editor in chief
Claire Webster said were particularly offended by the word search and
photograph.
“We were expecting a reaction,” Webster said.
“We wanted the students to think about the risks involved in [sex], but we
didn’t expect a lot of people to be as angry as they were with
it.”
Martin Plourde, principal at La Serna High School, did not
return repeated calls and e-mails requesting comment.
Webster said in
the days following the May issue, Plourde came and spoke to
The Freelancer staff, saying because of
the issue he would not allow them to publish for the rest of the year. She said
he reconsidered when they told him the planned topic of the June issue was
“unsung heroes.”
Webster said Plourde agreed to let them
publish the issue, as long as he reviewed the content prior to publication and
approved of the subject matter. However, when the paper was ready to print,
Plourde would not let it go to press.
According to an e-mail
co-authored by Webster and co-editor in chief Sergio Hernandez, Plourde would
not allow the June issue to be printed due to a
news story explaining that
The Freelancer’s adviser, Holly
Vance, was asked to resign over the May issue and, in fact, would not be
advising the newspaper in the fall.
Vance declined to
comment.
Plourde also allegedly took issue with Webster’s
written response to a letter to the
editor regarding an article about Christianity in the March issue.
The
students claim Plourde said they could not print the issue because it
“went beyond the scope” of the unsung heroes theme. But Webster said
the students never intended the June issue to consist only of stories about
unsung heroes.
“We told him the next issue was going to focus
on unsung heroes, which we meant to be the theme page,” Webster said.
“And he repeatedly called himself a professional journalist, so we thought
he knew what we meant.”
After being told by Plourde that their
June issue would not print, the students appealed to Sandra Thorstenson,
superintendent of the Whittier Union High School
District.
Thorstenson did not return repeated calls and e-mails
requesting comment.
Hernandez said in an e-mail that he and Webster
met with Thorstenson Thursday and that she said the June issue’s
publication was contingent on Plourde’s approval.
“She
... maintained that the censorship of our June issue was not a question of
whether or not it was obscene, libelous, likely to incite disruption, etc., but
that it went against the agreement we had with Mr. Plourde that our May issue
would, as punishment, be ‘our last issue,’” Hernandez said in
an e-mail.
California is one of six states to enact laws protecting
student free expression beyond what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled as
protected speech for student journalists. The California
law explicitly prohibits prior
restraint of student publications unless the material is obscene, libelous,
slanderous or if it incites disruption of the orderly operation of the school or
students to commit unlawful acts.
Webster said the students have not
yet decided if they want to pursue legal action, but said they have not ruled it
out.
“We haven’t sat down and discussed what we want to
do,” Webster said.
Webster said Thorstenson seemed generally
sympathetic to the students’ claims but said she preferred not to re-visit
the controversial “sex issue.”
“She seemed pretty
adamant on the whole ‘let’s move on and be friends’
thing,” Webster
said.
—by A.J. Bauer, SPLC
staff writer
© 2006 Student Press Law Center
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