By: Sami Haddad
Fused Sports Editor
During September 16, 2009 Principle Sue Vaughn, the principal of Orange County High School of the Arts, said it was mandatory that the student publication evolution had to be done through prior review. The Adviser to this publication, Konnie Krislock, refused to let her publication be viewed before it was sent to the presses. Krislock and the school’s administration then went into a two hour long meeting to discuss the problem. As it turned out, the school had no idea what California’s state education code even said about the freedom of expressions. Soon enough Vaughn retracted her statement and let the paper run without prior review.
Just thinking about this story it would make one think, how many other situations like this are happening the nation? Where schools, due to ignorance, shut down publications because they just don’t know what the law is. It is sad to see a school’s administration react in such a naïve manner to where they decide to issue prior review to the paper just because they don’t know what else to do. Krislock said herself that there was nothing in her publication that was obscene, libelous, or disruptive.
The school was very brave to fight against an oppressive system, it is this blind ignorance that leads to the censoring of many bright and skilled writers. Even if it was illegal for the school to censor the paper at all (Section 48907 in the code for California’s education code) they were willing to do that to end a publication.
If anything could have come out of this, Krislock would have had the right to sue the school itself for trying to rob her students their own right to express themselves. As a writer I hope that when this issue comes up again in any other school across the U.S.A. we will have the resources and the will power to end any thoughts of censorship among the student publication community.
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