Re-establishing our belief in the right forum
Just because the 2nd Circuit Federal Appeals Court recently handed down a decision in R.O. v. Ithaca City School District laden with shaky interpretations and references, it is not time to surrender or alter our beliefs.
“Drawings of stick figures in sexual positions clearly qualify as ‘lewd,’ that is, ‘inciting to sensual desire or imagination,'” Second Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes wrote in the decision about why the school could censor an independent student publication and the school’s student paper, which had attempted unsuccessfully to run the drawing in the first place.
The decision also said even though school’s paper, the Tattler, was a “limited public forum,” the cartoon could still be censored.
The Student Press Law Center reported in a May 18 article, “The Second Circuit, however, distinguished between a ‘limited’ public forum and a ‘designated’ public forum, holding that a ‘limited’ forum newspaper remains subject to Hazelwood.”
If not reversed, that decision could damage student media forum status, but other courts could also ignore it as an aberration.
The First Amendment Center’s President, Ken Paulson, said May 20 in a commentary (which also provides access to the student artwork), “the cartoon was censored because the school found it embarrassing, not because it would unleash the sexual imaginations of ninth graders. They can pretty much do that on their own.”
Paulson said images on the Internet and sexting expose students to far worse.
“In this environment,”Paulson wrote, “it seems a stretch to call anatomically vague stick figures ‘sexually explicit.'”
SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte said the decision was a misapplication of the law. “The court just fundamentally misunderstood what it means to be a limited public forum,” LoMonte said. “A forum where the government gets to pick and choose which cartoons it likes is meaningless.”
“All that this ruling really changes,” LoMonte said, “is that the term ‘limited public forum’ by itself apparently is going to be meaningless. And, as in Hazelwood itself, the court looked to the actual practice as well as what was on paper.”
If the adviser starts acting like the assignment editor, he said, it’s going to be held against the students, and a court is not going to recognize the paper as a true forum paper.
“You, the adviser, are ‘the state,'” LoMonte said, “and the more actively the state is involved in editorial decisions, the less likely the paper will be a forum regardless of what appears in the masthead and even in the policy manual.”
Simply calling student media “limited public forums” may no longer be enough, LoMonte said. In an email to the JEA listserv, LoMonte said any decent publications policy will have to go further than the “forum” buzzword and will have to enumerate with precision the exclusive grounds on which censorship is permissible. LoMonte has added additional information in a new post May 22.
For those who have “limited public forums” policies, or others concerned about maintaining their forum status, here are a couple suggestions:
• Look at your policy. If it just states you are a limited public forum, add or clarify language that explains what that means and how students make that the framework of professional standards. Look at model and state law language.
• Add or clarify language that shows how students will avoid unprotected speech and report accurately, thoroughly and in context.
• Add or clarify language that students make all final decisions of content and why that is important.
Although he warned JEA members the Ithaca decision could be the “worst legal setback” since Hazelwood, LoMonte also said it is such an outlandish overreach “it may become in New York, Vermont and Connecticut what Hosty v. Carter became for the college media in Illinois — the impetus for legislators to fix the law.”
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#WPFD
While you are re-posting “Free the press — all of it. http://bit.ly/f3wE2Y, be sure to go to #wpfd on Twitter, to add your comments that a strong segment of media in the United States is also not free: that of the scholastic media.
Read MoreWorld Press Freedom Day letter includes scholastic media
The Washington Post today published an “open letter” to President Obama and Secretary Clinton today from the Student Press Law Center, JEA and 36 other journalism and free-speech organizations urging them to declare their support for freeing “the other half” of America’s press.
Our hope is scholastic media programs will download the letter and develop Action Plans and lessons around it to show support for freedom of expression for scholastic media.
World Press Freedom Day is May 3 and is hosted in the US this year.
Read MoreFreedom for the world’s press must include scholastic media, too
May 3. Washington, D. C.
World Press Freedom Day.
The first time since UNESCO started the event 18 years ago the United States will host it.
And the perfect time to call for its tenets to be extended to scholastic media in a country that promotes freedom – and responsibility – for every other nation’s media.
We join the SPLC and 38 other journalism and free-speech organizations in an “open letter” to President Obama and Secretary Clinton urging them to use this occasion to declare their support for freeing “the other half” of America’s press.
On the eve of the JEA/NSPA scholastic media convention, JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission urges you to do the same. Write an editorial. Create a community forum. Discuss the review and censorship of student media – if it occurs – in your school’s communities and show how it limits education and twarts critical thinking.
Step up and join these 38 organizations in fighting to extend press freedom to a significant group of Americans – you.
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Overland situation settled – for now – although questions remain
According to both the Denver Post and the Student Press Law Center, the Overland Scout will retain its adviser and lose prior review – for the remainder of this year’s issues.
Unsettled, however, is what happens next year, both to the Scout and to the adviser.
“School and district officials maintain that the situation was a misunderstanding and that the newspaper was never shut down,” the Post reported April 4. “Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said that Lundie (the school’s principal) was unaware of a separate printing fund the district provides for printing newspapers and thought that they did not have the budget for further issues.”
SPLC attorney advocate Adam Goldstein said the problems have not been resolved, but that it was a good first step.
“Firing the adviser in May for what the students wrote isn’t more permissible than it is in March,” he said. “We still need assurances that this program will still exist as vibrant as it ever has.”
Unanswered questions remain:
• The school reportedly wants to move the existing publication online, although it now will not permit online student media to use last names. That policy would have to be changed, and it is not known how an online publication would fit into existing student media policies.
• With such a move, will the district retain the adviser or seek someone else?
• Will the district attempt to reinstate prior review?
• Will the idea of moving from print to online journalism affect other schools in the district?
• Will the principal’s idea for change alter existing concepts of journalism the district teaches and students practice at other schools?
For the latest information, please check out these sources:
• Overland High School official statement from the principal and official policy statement
• Overland High School relents
• Overland principal: student newspaper to continue publishing
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