MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY - The balance of influence over the content of high school publications would switch from administrators to students if a House bill passes.
"This would be the only part of the curriculum that would not be controlled by the administration," said John Glore, executive director of the Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals.
Glore was among a handful of opponents to the bill at a Tuesday House committee hearing on the measure. Supporters, most of whom were student journalists, filled the remainder of the room.
Glore told House Judiciary Committee members that his association supports freedom of expression, but said the fact that many student publications are supported by tax dollars lends itself to allowing some faculty control over content.
His opinion gained the empathy of several lawmakers, but support for the bill was the prevailing sentiment at the hearing.
Kimberly Skoch, a Hickman High School junior and staff member of the Purple and Gold newspaper, said she considers herself lucky to write for a paper that is not regularly reviewed by school administration.
"We have the common sense to know where the limits are," Skoch said. "Our staff members are incredibly mature when it comes to picking out stories."
Junior Carrie Watkins, another Purple and Gold staff member, said she could only recall one incident when the paper printed something she considered inappropriate - a movie review in which the writer used a sexually explicit phrase to describe the film.
Watkins said the whole staff considered it their mistake for letting the comment into print.
Jeremy Gates, an M.U. freshman, told lawmakers why he thinks the bill is needed. Gates found himself the object of national media attention last year when he was the editor-in-chief of the Jaguar Journal at Blue Springs South High School.
Reporters had researched an article on cigarette sales to minors but were told by the administration they could not print the names of stores that sold cigarettes to underage reporters.
"The main concern I have with this kind of censorship is the way the administration can exert its influence," Gates said.
He said he thinks the proposed legislation would eliminate similar future situations.
Like Hickman's Skoch and Watkins, high school journalists across the country are bound by a 1988 Supreme Court ruling that originated in St. Louis County. The Hazelwood ruling states that, while students officially have freedom of expression, administrators retain final authority over content of student publications.
Under the bill, sponsored by Rep. Joan Bray, D-St. Louis County, content would be limited in four cases. Those include obscenity to minors, libel or slander, unwarranted invasion of privacy and creating a "clear and present danger" to the operation of the school.
The Columbia Public School District's student public policy gives administrators the final authority over content. However, it has guidelines that are only slightly broader than those of the proposed bill to determine when non-school-sponsored student publications may be censored.
One St. Louis-area principal spoke in support of the bill, noting that most of his colleagues wouldn't agree with him on the subject.
"I do not want my students to write only what I want them to write," said Franklin McCallie, Kirkwood High School principal. "I already have a voice."