The Flatlander's View

Student journalism questions hit hard in Nebraska, too

By Steve Moseley
Posted 10/13/22

I read with great interest Charles Larsen’s recent piece on this page about student-led school newspapers, specifically the trend to defund or entirely eliminate them.

A recent example of …

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The Flatlander's View

Student journalism questions hit hard in Nebraska, too

Posted

I read with great interest Charles Larsen’s recent piece on this page about student-led school newspapers, specifically the trend to defund or entirely eliminate them.

A recent example of just this situation ‘hit the fan’ as they say in Grand Island, only a few miles west of where I live in York, Nebraska.

This is the gist of it as reported by local media: “Administrators at a Nebraska school shuttered the school’s award-winning student newspaper just days after its last edition that included articles and editorials on LGBTQ issues, leading press freedom advocates to call the move an act of censorship.

“The staff of Northwest Public Schools’ 54-year-old Saga newspaper was informed on May 19 of the paper’s elimination,” the Grand Island Independent reported. Three days earlier, the newspaper had printed its June edition, which included an article titled, “Pride and prejudice: LGBTQIA+” on the origins of Pride Month and the history of homophobia. It also included an editorial opposing a Florida law that bans some lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity and dubbed by critics as “Don’t Say Gay.”

Clearly Charles, The Tribune’s up-and-coming young columnist, holds youth journalism in higher regard than did, apparently, the board and administration at Northwest. It must also say how much I admire my young Panther colleague, in equal parts for his obvious passion to write and the tenacity he employed to make it happen.

Not only is Charles intelligent, perhaps more importantly he is intellectually curious. These traits will serve him and his readers well in whatever writing career he ultimately selects.

In the Nebraska example I cite here, Northwest’s school newspaper was not the only thing to go. The classroom journalism curriculum was sent sliding down the tubes, too.

To say this school’s decision ignited a firestorm in opposition understates the case. No less than the ACLU weighed in on the matter. Quickly. Publicly.

What I didn’t realize until young Mr. Larsen brought it to my attention and yours, is how this same not-so-subtle censorship bears the odor of a national pattern.

Back to what happened here in Nebraska, again as reported by the Independent: “Officials overseeing the district, which is based in Grand Island, have not said when or why the decision was made to eliminate the student paper.” But an email from a school employee to the Independent cancelling the student paper’s printing services on May 22 said it was “because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue’s editorial content.

“The paper’s demise also came a month after its staff was reprimanded for publishing students’ preferred pronouns and names. District officials told students they could only use names assigned at birth going forward,” continued the Independent.

For their part some school board members see things very differently and have made no secret of their objection to the Saga’s LGBTQ content, including board president Dan Leiser, who said “most people were upset” with it.

Board vice president Zach Mader directly cited the pro-LGBTQ editorials, adding that if district taxpayers had read the last issue of the Saga, “they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”

Others, however, took a palpably dimmer view.

“It sounds like a ham-fisted attempt to censor students and discriminate based on disagreement with perspectives and articles that were featured in the student newspaper,” said Sara Rips, an attorney for the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Nebraska Press Association attorney Max Kautsch, who specializes in media law in Nebraska and Kansas, noted that press freedom is protected in the U.S. Constitution.

“The decision by the administration to eliminate the student newspaper violates students’ right to free speech, unless the school can show a legitimate educational reason for removing the option to participate in a class … that publishes award-winning material,” Kautsch said. “It is hard to imagine what that legitimate reason could be.”

Has this brouhaha changed anything at Northwest? If so, that news has not been revealed in the public realm.

As a personal aside, administration at my small Nebraska School in the mid-60s tolerated no backtalk from students — zip, zero, zilch — in all matters of policy. It was a different world, one in which adults spoke and we were expected to listen without comment and comply.

And so it was this Dark Ages environment in which I helped my fellow Genoa High School Oriole ‘Chirps’ newspaper staff to produce our wee publication the (very) hard way; by cranking the handle of a manual mimeograph machine in turns like a bizarre team of whirling dervishes. It wasn’t the leading edge student journalism of today, my goodness no, but we did our best with what we had.

Exactly like today’s burgeoning young journalists. Let’s advise, supervise and nurture. Then step aside.

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