Students’ best interests defended

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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It's easy to defend free speech when you agree with what's being said. The challenge comes when you find the sentiments expressed to be offensive, even wrong.

Of course, it's still necessary to defend one as the other in order to protect this most fundamental American right.

That's why we're glad to see an Iowa court recently rule in favor of student journalism. The case involved an Allamakee Community School District student newspaper adviser disciplined for allowing students to publish content that upset school administrators.

The school officials said the Waukon High School newspaper contained a number of articles they found objectionable, including articles in April Fools' Day edition that were meant to be funny.

But administrators were not amused by the parody articles about a biology teacher supposedly running a meth lab, cheerleaders taking steroids, and others. Nor were they pleased when, in a separate issue, there was a photo of a student wearing clothing that didn't comply with the school dress code and a doctored photo of a baby smoking next to an article about the school's tobacco policy.

They reprimanded newspaper adviser Ben Lange and briefly suspended him without pay after that September 2009 edition for “undermining our school goals.”

But the Iowa Court of Appeals ordered those two reprimands removed because state law clearly protects students right to publish content that isn't obscene, libelous or encouraging of lawbreaking or disruption of school operations. That strikes us as a reasonable threshold, although there certainly can be difficult gray areas - especially as to what's obscene, not just in poor taste.

Free press advocates say they hope the Iowa ruling will have a ripple effect in other states that don't have such strong protections for students. We also hope that's the case.

At the same time, we also worry that some school boards and administrators may try to circumvent the court's clear message by dumping journalism programs and school newspapers to save money in a tighter revenue environment.

In some ways, denying support for student programs poses an even greater risk to students' ability to exercise their First Amendment rights. It sends a poor message to students about the value of their voice.

We urge schools not only to be mindful of the ruling, reinforcing students' right to free speech through student publications, but also to show support for our constitutional freedoms by doing whatever they can to protect resources for serious journalism experiences.

Such commitment to free speech and open debate will have far greater impact on our children than does any off-color story that causes a principal to cringe.

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