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INDIANA — In a victory for one high school newspaper, a school board voted in January not to take away the paper’s editorial control after it printed articles on oral sex.

In December, 2005, student reporters at Columbus North High School wrote articles about the psychological and medical risks of oral sex. The four-page spread brought both praise and criticism from readers.

Principal David Clark supported the students from the get-go, despite some critics saying the topic of oral sex was too mature for a high school audience.

“We’re pretty conservative here,” Clark said. But we “can’t hide our heads in the sand. Kids need to know the risks.”

The controversy spurred one board member to call for a vote to decide if future issues of The Triangle would have to be approved by an administrator before publication.

Kim Green, the faculty journalism adviser, said she would resign from her position if the board voted for the prior review. The board voted 5-2 against prior review, leaving the paper’s policy that gives final say to the students in place.

Student editor Nikki Shephard said the close call would not lead to self-censorship of future controversial stories in The Triangle.

“If they’re trying to scare us, they’ll have to try harder,” Shephard said.

Community reacts to principal’s banning of gay student’s column

ILLINOIS — A gay high school student’s column urging others to come out was censored from his high school newspaper in a Chicago suburb.

In September 2005, Wheaton-Warrenville high school student Stephen Delaney wrote an article for his student newspaper, The Pride, titled, “The importance of coming out.” The article dealt with Delaney’s own experience revealing his sexual orientation to friends and family and urged other homosexuals to come out.

Principal Dawn Snyder said the topic of homosexuality was appropriate for high school students, but the personal manner in which the article was written was why she cut it prior to publication.

Delaney said he thinks the decision to censor was definitely based on the sensitive subject matter and that Snyder told him to make the article more neutral and historical. That was not something he was willing to do, Delaney said.

Delaney’s article was published in the local paper, The Daily Herald, and he has since received supportive responses from community members in the town.

Michigan anti-censorship bill likely to die, press advocates say

MICHIGAN — A state bill that would protect high school newspapers from censorship is not picking up any steam more than a year after it was proposed. And the Michigan Press Association’s decision not to support the bill will not help matters, one student press advocate said.

Michigan Senate Bill 156 says that a school official or school board may not review or restrain a student publication prior to printing unless an article is obscene to minors, defamatory, an invasion of privacy or if it poses a “clear and present danger” of illegal or substantially disruptive activity.

Michigan Press Association executive director Mike MacLaren said his organization, which represents the interests of 300 Michigan newspapers, does not support the bill.

“When you go to work for a for-profit, publicly held newspaper, quite often stories are going to get spiked by the editor,” MacLaren said. “Students have to be prepared for those eventualities.”

Without the MPA supporting the bill, legislators are unlikely to support it, said Perry Parks, a member of the Michigan Collegiate Press Association board of directors and adviser to Michigan State University’s student newspaper.

And comparing school administrators to professional newspaper publishers is way off, Parks said. Both publishers and reporters have the common goal of exercising their free speech rights; administrators are not looking out for the First Amendment rights of their students, he said.

In the long run, not giving student reporters strong First Amendment rights will make for less adept professional journalists, Parks said.

“If you’re thinking long term and you’re a publisher in Michigan, you want people to come and work for your newspaper who know how to challenge authority, write about sensitive issues and make a difference,” he said.

Student newspaper cannot run political ads, school says

NEW YORK — After an anti-military ad ran in Warwick Valley High School’s student newspaper, the school board voted in March to limit ads to those selling a product, not a political idea.

According to a new rule adopted in February by the Warwick Valley Board of Education, advertisements appearing in the student newspaper, The Survey, “must be limited to products and services.”

While it does not state it specifically, the new rule would ban ads from anti-war groups, military recruiters, Planned Parenthood, Right to Life and any student or community member campaigning for office.

The ad that prompted the vote was a full-page photo of tombstones with the bold, white message: “You can’t be all you can be if you’re dead. There are other ways to serve your country. There are other ways to get money for college. There are other ways to be all you can be. Think about it before you sign your life away.”

Board President Michael Meinhardt said he does not think the policy infringes on free speech rights.

School board sorry after censoring biting student editorial

ILLINOIS — A school board apologized in March for halting distribution of a high school student newspaper and gave the OK to pass out the paper, which contained an editorial critical of a school board member.

District 158 board member Larry Snow caught wind that Huntley High School’s student newspaper was planning on publishing an editorial in their March edition questioning why he was speaking out against a tax referendum in a neighboring district.

According to Interim-Superintendent Robert Hammon, Snow called him and demanded that issue not print. Hammon let the issue print, but did not allow students to distribute the issue until after the board met.

At that meeting, board members voted to let students distribute and apologized for the delay.

Snow denied having a problem with the editorial. After the meeting, he said, “there was really nothing wrong with the editorial.”

Both Snow and Hammon said a student newspaper “absolutely” should have the freedom to criticize public officials.

Censuring the censors: high school officials receive Muzzle Awards

What do school administrators at Oak Ridge High School in Tennessee, Wellington High School in Florida and Troy High School in California have in common with heavy-hitters like the Department of Justice and President Bush?

All are governmental bodies that stomped on free speech rights in a major way during 2005, according to the Thomas Jefferson Center for Free Expression, who awarded them the dubious “Jefferson Muzzle” awards in April.

The awards, which began in 1992, are meant to point out particularly severe lapses in protecting the First Amendment. School officials make the list almost every year.

“We feel it is just as important to give Muzzles to high school administrators because these are the people who are teaching the next generation of citizens a terrible lesson in civics,” said Josh Wheeler, assistant director of the Thomas Jefferson Center.

Becky Ervin, principal of Oak Ridge High School, earned herself a muzzle for recalling 1,800 copies of the student newspaper in January because she felt articles discussing tattoos, body piercing and birth control were too mature for high school students.

At Wellington High School, Principal Cheryl Alligood pulled copies of the student newspaper in February because it contained articles about sex and virginity. Alligood made students reprint the issue without a student-written sex column. Students were told they would be suspended if they were caught with the sex column issue.

At Troy High School, school officials fired a student editor from the student newspaper after she wrote profiles on three gay students discussing their decisions to come out to friends and family.