Although students in a Washington school district recently won a censorship ruling in federal court, they are still fighting their district’s media policy that permits the administration powers of prior review and prior restraint. -db
Student Press Law Center
May 20, 2010
By Josh Moore
PUYALLUP, Wash. — Student editors at three Puyallup School District high schools are pointing to a recent case of censorship as proof they need a publications policy without prior review.
The latest issue of JagWire at Emerald Ridge High School includes an empty space that simply declares, “This story has been censored,” according to a press release from Fight for the Right to Write, a group formed by student editors at three district high schools whose goal is to work with the school board to create a new student media policy without including prior review or prior restraint.
The absent story covered the school district getting a favorable jury verdict in a lawsuit in which four students had claimed they had not given consent to JagWire to print their names and “private information” in a February 2008 article about oral sex. Last month a Pierce County jury ruled that the newspaper had not violated the students’ privacy.
According to the group’s press release, JagWire reporter Allie Rickard decided to withhold her story about the lawsuit from print after it was prior reviewed by Mike Patterson, an attorney representing the district in the lawsuit. Patterson, an attorney with a Seattle law firm, insisted that Jagwire editors not publish the plaintiffs’ names, change a quote from another attorney with Patterson’s law firm, and rewrite an explanation of the meaning of a limited forum, the press release said.
Patterson was traveling outside of the country and could not be reached for comment by press time.
The student group e-mailed Superintendent Tony Apostle and school board members about their proposal to work together on a new policy. In an e-mail response, obtained from the school district’s Executive Director of Communications Karen Hansen, Apostle told the students that the board of directors did not have plans to change its publications policy, but he would be willing to work with the group on one condition: students and their parents agree to accept financial responsibility for the student publications.
Rickard, an editor at the JagWire and a member of the student group, said the students are willing to make that agreement if they can return to an open forum status, which would require a policy without prior review and prior restraint.
Mike Hiestand, a Student Press Law Center attorney who has been working with the students, said this latest incident focuses attention on the problem with the current policy and shows its need to be resolved.
“I think [the school district] understood pretty clearly what the students’ objections were and why they would be upset about not being able to report on very public information from a public trial,” he said.
Amanda Wyma, also an editor at JagWire and member of the Fight for the Right to Write group, said a policy without prior review would give reporters “the chance to cover the things that really matter.”
She said since the new policy of prior review was put in place, she has seen her fellow reporters shy away from covering more difficult topics because they think they might be censored. After she graduates in June, reporters at Emerald Ridge won’t know what it is like to cover those issues, Wyma said.
“When we leave, me and one of my co-editors are the last two who will have seen an open-forum structure in our newspaper,” she said.
The Fight for the Right to Write group organized a public meeting May 3 to educate the community about their goal of creating an open forum status for their publications. They have also used their website and a Facebook page to rally community support and have asked students and community members to sign a petition supporting their idea.
Rickard said they hope to meet with school officials before the school year ends on June 16.
“We want a policy in place by the time school starts next year so all of those starting in student journalism and continuing in journalism have a solid policy to work from,” she said.
Apostle was unable to comment for this article.
Copyright 2010 Student Press Law Center