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School district ends student newspaper after high schoolers write about Pride Month in June issue [1]
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Date: 2022-08-25
Principal P.J. Smith passed the paper’s questions on to Jeff Edwards, who serves as superintendent for the district, according to the outlet. The outlet says Edwards said it was an “administrative decision” and did not answer why or when this decision was made.
But students involved in the paper definitely have their own ideas about why the decision came to be.
Emma Smith, assistant editor of the paper, told the outlet that the school board banned the use of chosen names and pronouns in the paper and that they were told the paper could only publish names assigned at birth in the future. This happened after the paper published an issue with correct names and pronouns for students—including the byline of an openly trans student and staff writer for the paper.
That student? They ended up having their byline changed to their birth name for the June issue, which is obviously a violent form of “outing” and truly horrifying. That student, Marcus Pennell, told the outlet it was the first time the school had “officially” made him feel unwanted and felt like a “really big deal.”
It is a really big deal. Including being legitimately dangerous for queer students—and especially trans students, like Pennell—this all also seems like a big violation of First Amendment rights. Especially because, per the Independent, it doesn’t seem folks in charge are even pretending otherwise.
Zach Mader, who serves as vice president for the school board, told the outlet that in the last issue of the year, there was some “hostility” and there were editorials he would say were “LGBTQ.” Mader went on to say there had been discussions about “doing away” with the newspaper if they couldn’t control the content.
“If [taxpayers] read that [issue],” he continued to the outlet. “They would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”
What’s going on at that school? Sounds like the school has smart and brave young people who are writing relevant, timely, and honest articles for a long-established paper that’s literally won awards. In other words, sounds like the school has some budding First Amendment advocates—especially thanks to this debacle.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/25/2118778/-School-district-ends-student-newspaper-after-high-schoolers-write-about-Pride-Month-in-June-issue
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