First Amendment Ignored by Stevenson High School Administration

by Belle Kim

In yet another blatant disregard of the First Amendment by a school administration, staff members of the Stevenson High School student newspaper Statesmen were forced to publish an issue composed of only administration-approved content.

The issue originated when Editor-in-Chief Pamela Selmon submitted for prior review a front-page article discussing the school's substance-abuse contracts. Because the number of student leaders who had broken the contract of no-drugs-or-alcohol appeared to have greatly increased, the topic had been deemed newsworthy. However, it would also be a topic that students would be reluctant to speak about. Thus, the reporter and editor granted their sources anonymity.

The school administration refused to allow the publication of the story, unless the sources were named. When the staff members chose to remove the article and distribute the issue with a blank front page, the administrative review board refused to allow the issue to print with the blank space, and also censored two other stories in the newspaper covering teen pregnancy and shoplifting. In protest, the staff requested to remove their bylines from the published stories and to include an editor's note explaining the circumstances under which the article was published. Both requests were denied. These students are now being represented by Chicago attorney Gabriel Fuentes through the SPLC's volunteer attorney referral network.

It seems ridiculous that the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no laws...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," is only applicable in the real word and not in schools. The experiences that we have in high school supposed to prepare us for the real world. And in the real world, in the United States, a journalist has a right to cover newsworthy stories without fear of censorship or persecution from the government.

Shouldn't this right apply to the journalists of Stevenson High School, as well?

The school administration failed to do its job: to promote education and to act for the general welfare of the students. The staff of the newspaper had every right to publish the article, and the student body had every right to know the information that went into the paper.

Instead, the administration overlooked its students' rights, deeming that a higher priority would be to protect the school reputation by pulling the issue. But by choosing to do so, the administration only managed to bring more negative attention to itself and to Stevenson High School than could ever have been placed upon them, had the issue been published.

What, really, is the point of censorship? What does it accomplish? What does it show?

Only one answer can be found to these questions: that narrow-minded school administrators are willing to blatantly ignore the freedom of speech and press for its students.