Anti-illegal immigration editorial censored

Principal says he was doing job when he confiscated papers; student press advocates say principal missed teachable moment

© 2006 Student Press Law Center

June 5, 2006

INDIANA — When LeAnne Manuel wrote an unsigned editorial for her high school paper on the immigration debate, she was hoping it would spark a discussion among students.

“I feel extremely passionate about illegal immigration,” said Manuel, a rising senior at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis. “I mean, it just makes my blood boil.”

But when Manuel’s anti-illegal immigration editorial ran in the student newspaper on April 28, administrators confiscated the paper, and the discussion quickly turned to how the piece ever made it in the paper in the first place.

Opinions on the newspaper’s confiscation varied. Some staff members of the Spotlight said they felt censored. Administrators said the editorial caused a disruption at school and they were doing their job when they pulled the papers. Student press advocates say administrators missed a teachable moment.

Administrators placed new restrictions on student journalists at Ben Davis as a result of Manuel’s editorial, including requiring prior review of the Spotlight by an assistant principal. Student editors said the paper had been operating as a forum for student expression for years and was not regularly reviewed by administrators. A new student publications policy set to be approved by the school board sometime this summer could make some of the new restrictions permanent.

Manuel’s editorial, titled “Migrant slack-off day also known as May 1,” encouraged students to come to school and not participate in the nationwide immigration strike.

“Really, this entire day of protest is nothing but a reason to skip school,” she wrote. “If immigrants want to show that they are a major part of society, setting the example at school and work by coming is their best option.”

Manuel goes on to advocate in the editorial that immigrating illegally to the United States should be a felony.

“Illegal immigrants are doing nothing but breaking our laws,” she wrote. “If these illegal aliens think they are making a difference to our society, they have another thing coming.”

Looking back on the column, Manuel said it “could have been toned down,” but she still thinks she should have the right to express the opinion.

Issue hits racks

The Friday the paper came out, Ben Davis Principal Joel McKinney was at a meeting on the east side of Indianapolis. But when he got wind of the editorial, he said he left the meeting and returned to campus immediately.

“Many students were upset, voiced being angry at the tone of the editorial,” McKinney said. “There were rumors going around that the school doesn’t care for [Hispanics] because they allowed” the editorial to be printed in the student paper.

McKinney said he beefed up security that day as a precaution.

“I’m in charge of making sure the environment isn’t disruptive,” he said. “There was no violence, but there was some verbal confrontations we had to deal with.”

To “help diffuse the tension,” McKinney said administrators did remove the papers.

A meeting was held with Hispanic students in the auditorium the day the paper came out about the “proper way to respond” to the editorial, said Tom Langdoc, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township, of which Ben Davis High School is a part.

Most of the Spotlight staff was at a journalism convention that Friday at Ball State University, about 60 miles away from the high school.

“From what people told us, after it was distributed, people were upset, a lot of people were talking about it,” said Brent Fowler, a photo editor for the paper. “When we got back to school they told us to get our stuff and leave because the administration was upset.

“I understand that they thought it was a distraction, anything can become a distraction at school. We spent three weeks planning it, and I don’t think it was right for them to take it away and destroy it without us knowing. We put hard work into that.”

Mike Beam, the paper’s editor, refused to comment for this story.

Manuel, the editorial writer, said school officials told her to stay home the Monday and Tuesday following the day the editorial was printed “because of safety concerns.”

Repercussions

Although McKinney said he’s not interested in controlling the paper, he instituted what he said was a temporary prior review policy to “err on the side of caution.”

McKinney said the assistant principal will provide extra review for the student newspaper because the paper’s adviser, Janet McKinney, failed to do her job.

Janet McKinney, who is not related the principal, declined to comment for this story.

“All the previous newspapers she had done her part in making sure she had proofread, anticipated anything out of the ordinary,” Joel McKinney said. “On this particular issue she didn’t make that determination. She wasn’t doing the sponsor’s role of letting me know that there might be a potential problem.”

As a result of the immigration editorial, Fowler, the student photo editor, said administrators made the paper change a statement in its masthead. The paper previously printed in the masthead that it was an open forum for student expression, but administrators made the paper change it to read in part, “The Spotlight represents and exemplifies Ben Davis High School and is not a public or open forum.”

“I don’t think that’s right either,” Fowler said of the masthead statement change. “They didn’t consult staff, editors, adviser...it’s our newspaper, and we should have some say in it.

“They’re censoring us. It’s pretty much what they want the paper to be.”

But the principal said he is not trying to censor the paper.

“I don’t want to change the paper,” McKinney said. “I don’t think they hear me. I just think they are upset about the whole situation. I reassure every student who has asked me, I don’t have any desire to change the students’ practices whatsoever, I just need my sponsor to be more prepared to point out things that could cause a disruption.”

Right to speak?

Through the whole ordeal, Manuel said there was not much talk of free speech or the First Amendment.

“I really don’t understand the whole free speech in this,” she said. “What’s been shoved down my throat is that the administration told me I was wrong, I was bad.”

And that message is dangerous for aspiring student journalists, student press advocates said.

John Bowen, chairman of the Journalism Education Association’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission, said he read the editorial and does not feel it should have been censored.

“I think it sends a message that some ideas just certainly shouldn’t be discussed in society,” said Bowen, who is also a journalism professor at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

“Even though it’s an unpleasant topic, it’s not the worst I’ve seen on the subject,” he said, referring to Manuel’s editorial.

Bowen said administrators oftentimes take the easy way out in dealing with these types of situations, punishing the students who speak instead of the students who are making threats.

“Students learn very quickly if they are censored that they don’t have a right to speak,” he said. “It is far better for a principal to use this as a springboard for discussion of logic rather than emotion.”

Adam Maksl, a journalism graduate student at Ball State University and former editor of the Spotlight at Ben Davis High School, echoed Bowen’s feelings and said the principal missed a teachable moment.

“How can they be expected to practice ethical decision making when they are not given the opportunity to do so. That’s what scares me,” Maksl said. “When you have a higher power coming in and saying ‘by my estimation you messed up, you took that responsibility and didn’t live up to what you are suppose to do with it, now you don’t have those rights anymore,’ students aren’t learning from it, because they aren’t given the right to make any ethical decisions again.”

New policy

Diana Hadley, assistant director of the Indiana High School Press Association, said her organization did not want to take sides on the incident. But she said the IHSPA is opposed to a new publications policy currently before the school board that could limit students’ free press rights even further at Ben Davis High School.

“We really hate to see policy made after one incident, which they don’t believe they are doing, but that’s what it looks like,” Hadley said. “I don’t want this to become us against them. IHSPA really wants to work with administration so that we can all teach the First Amendment and responsible journalism.”

A new policy applying to “School Sponsored Publications & Productions” was introduced at the school board’s May 15 meeting, said Langdoc, the district spokesman. Langdoc said a new policy should be in place before students return for school next year.

A portion of the new proposed policy reads, “The publications and productions of the School District are not a public forum for the use of non-students or for the expression of values contrary to the values inherent in the curriculum established for students by the Board.”

Unsigned editorials would also be banned if the proposed policy is adopted.

Hadley said the proposed policy could be dangerous for student journalists depending on how it is interpreted.

“Two different people could look at this policy and go in very different directions as far as still allowing student voice and looking at everything they do,” she said.

Hadley said although Manuel may not have proceeded in the right way with her anti-illegal immigration editorial, everything should not be censored from now on because of it. She implied that more coaching on the adviser’s part could have avoided the situation entirely.

“I think controversial topics are certainly important to discuss,” she said. “I think that the problem often arises when people feel that a side has not been expressed. Clearly fairness is a major factor as you work through those controversial topics.

“Students want to be fair, but because they are young, they might not have considered all the angles of the issue. It’s important in those opinion pieces to help them think through opinions, express themselves in the best way they can.”

Big picture

Hadley said her organization is worried about efforts across Indiana to reign in control over student speech.

In late 2005, a high school newspaper in Columbus, Ind., ran a story about oral sex which led to the school board voting on whether administrators should have more control over content in the student newspaper. In a success for high school student newspapers, the Columbus North Consolidated School Board voted against placing tougher restrictions on what the student paper can run.

Student journalists in Noblesville, Ind., 70 miles from Columbus, have not been so lucky with their oral sex article. In February, Noblesville High School principal Annetta Petty informed students hours before deadline that the article would have to go before a committee that would decide whether the topic was appropriate. Weeks later, the committee recommended the article should run, only to have the superintendent, Lynn Lehman, decide the article had no place in the student paper.

“I think that at the IHSPA our concerns revolve around what seems to be the circling of the wagons among school corporations to control all of the messages,” Hadley said.

She said her organization is afraid administrators look at them as “taking advantage of the First Amendment.” Because of this perception, she said IHSPA is trying to make inroads with administrators.

“We’re supportive of the staff and advisers without making administrators think we are out to get them,” she said.

By working more with administrators, Hadley said she hopes her organization will be better equipped to protect students’ First Amendment rights.

But in the case of Ben Davis High School, the First Amendment may have been lost in the storm of outrage that followed the publication of Manuel’s column.

“I think we are going to be held back in our learning process because we have to be so worried about what our assistant principal is going to think about our newspaper,” Manuel said of the new prior review policy. “The administration is making us feel dumb, like we all have done something wrong. But none of us did anything wrong. We did what we have done the entire year. We have a quality newspaper, and we are a really good program.”

McKinney, the principal, agrees the school has a quality newspaper. He said the April 28 issue was reprinted a week later without Manuel’s column because it was “so well done.”

Because of the potential for self-censorship in the future, Maksl said he worries about students’ ability to take on controversial topics in his alma mater’s paper.

“Of course students should be able to write about a topic, especially one that has a clear political value and is being discussed in the professional media around the country right now anyway,” he said. “But as with any member of the press, any journalist, there should be some thoughts from the writer, what’s the best way to do this in an ethical way. How do I say this in a way that is going to make people not only understand what I am trying to say, but think about it for themselves, question their own thoughts and beliefs, and use that as a tool to spark discussion.”

Overreacting to students’ pieces and instituting harsh restrictions is not the way to teach responsibility, Maksl said. Allowing students to make mistakes and letting the discussion play out in the community is the best way for student reporters to learn, he said.

—by Evan Mayor, SPLC staff writer

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