School-press freedoms nipped by wary officials and tight budgets
Student reporter Kathryn Winsor was skeptical when the school board voted to eliminate San Marin High School's journalism class last spring, effectively killing the newspaper.
The school board in Novato, Calif., said it was a matter of money, but Kathryn suspects the real goal was "silencing a sometimes critical student press."
That's a charge denied by school-board members, who eventually reinstated the class after cries of protest from parents offering to fund the class from their own pockets.
Not that Kathryn doesn't have good reason to worry. Nationwide, these are uneasy times for student journalists and the administrators who look over their shoulders. Facing greater scrutiny from outsiders, principals would prefer some positive publicity rather than internal criticism when they open the pages of their school papers.
"Administrators who are fearful of student journalism and student press rights can use the budget as an excuse to get rid of something they find troublesome anyway," says Ellen Kersey, a journalism adviser in Carmarillo, Calif., and regional director of the Journalism Education Association. In the process, journalism teachers fear that whole schools may be losing a valuable voice and a hands-on way to learn about press freedom.
Yet the recession isn't the only reason for more intervention by administrators. A 1988 US Supreme Court decision upheld their right to censor student publications if it's "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."
In the years since, the number of schools reporting censorship by administrators has risen to almost one-third of all papers, according to surveys conducted by Jack Dvorak, a journalism professor at Indiana University in Bloomington.
More journalists in training are calling the Student Press Law Center, a legal assistance center in Virginia, for advice about their rights.
Most callers say their only infraction is criticizing school policies, says SPLC executive director Mark Goodman.
But as students in San Marin discovered last year, they have little legal recourse when an entire journalism program is eliminated outright.
School-board members there insist the school's $3 million budget shortfall is the sole reason for dropping the class. "It's just that it's such a distressing time for education in California," says school board president Perry Newman. "We're having to cut good stuff and we don't want to." They suggested the student newspaper, The Pony Express, could operate as a club instead of being produced during class time.
Ronnie Campagna, who had taught the class for 18 years, wasn't convinced, and neither were her students. "The kids have done some investigative stories that have not pleased the school board," she says.
For example, Kathryn cites one story that criticized school administrators for not letting students stand up in the bleachers during basketball games in the school's gymnasium.
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