On March 31, when the opening bell rang at Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska, the principal walked into a journalism classroom adorned with punctuation posters and delivered the new rules directly from the administration.
Students, including at least three transgender students, were ordered to use the names they were given at birth on the signature line, according to a former student in the classroom and an attorney at Student Press. law center.
In response, student journalists devoted the final June issue to LGBTQ issues, writing two columns on the topic and a news story about the origins of Pride Month. The school then retaliated after its publication, said Mike Hiestand, an attorney at the Student Press Law Center.
Northwest Public Schools administrator and superintendent Jeff Edwards shut down newspaper programs in June, angering student journalists and press freedom advocates who denounced the move as censorship.
“I think they said if you can’t stop it, if you can’t control it, just get rid of it,” Heastant said of school officials.
The program and the abolition of the student newspaper Viking Saga were first reported Wednesday by the Grand Island Independent. It was in print for 54 years at Northwest High School, the district’s only high school, in Grand Island, a small city about 95 miles west of New York. capital.
Edwards and former principal Tim Krupicka We respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment last week. Edwards told The Independent it was an “administrative” decision to discontinue the program.
Zach Madder, vice chairman of the Northwest Public Schools Board, declined to comment last week. He said there was talk of abolishing the newspaper.” When the final issue came out, he said, “There was a little animosity among some people.”
“There was basically an LGBTQ editorial,” Madder told The Independent.
Max Kauch, a First Amendment rights attorney who has handled media law cases in Nebraska and Kansas, said in a call that Madder’s comments were evidence of discrimination and censorship of certain points of view. I was.
“The motive is not a mystery,” said Kauch. “The motive is to crush the views of students who have positive feelings about the LGBTQ movement.”
The paper’s closure was the latest in a row between school officials and students trying to block the distribution of the yearbook and the publication of articles, especially when they dealt with LGBTQ issues.
In May, school officials in Longwood, Fla., ordered stickers to be placed on photographs published in the Ryman High School yearbook.
Last August, school officials in Arkansas removed a two-page annual review spread from one high school yearbook that referenced the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the 2020 election.
“It’s definitely something we see more of,” Heastant said.
At least 16 states have enacted laws to protect school publications from interference. A similar bill passed in the Nebraska legislature earlier this year.
Marcus Pennell, 18, is a transgender man who was one of the students in Northwest High School’s newspaper class this spring. He told me on the phone that he was there.
“Honestly, I was pretty devastated,” Pennell said.
He added that journalism teacher Kirsten Gilliland declined a request for comment last week, breaking the news to students by saying, “I don’t know who or really why, but this is what happened.” rice field.
In the final issue, which featured two rainbows on the front page, Pennell wrote an editorial under the birth name Megan, based on the school’s new policy. In it, he discussed Florida’s “Don’t Say You’re Gay” bill, writing: to them.
Students who enrolled in journalism classes this fall have been placed in other classes, Heastant said. Pennell said his friend was randomly switched to an “animal science class.”
It was unclear whether the students and their parents were planning to sue in hopes of reviving the newspaper and journalism programs. I think it’s about,” he said.
Pennell said he feels sorry for students who may never experience the thrill and pressure of deadlines within Northwest High.
“It would be nice to have the paper back,” he said. “But obviously it’s out of my hands and out of our hands.”