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Administrators at Harrisburg High School in Harrisburg, Illinois are requiring the school’s student newspaper to use courtesy titles such as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” when referring to faculty, staff, or members of the school board.
The move is a reaction to a December editorial that a school superintendent called “disrespectful to the principal in content and attitude.”
When newspaper staffers went to the school board to ask that the rule be overturned, senior Molly Williams said, “they basically came out and said that it was about content and that they didn’t like what we were writing.” Added Williams, an editor on the paper, “it’s almost like they can’t take constructive criticism well.”
The practice of using courtesy titles contradicts the Associated Press Stylebook, the standard reference for newspaper style.
A few days ago we linked to a story (and video) about a snowball fight at East Carolina University that ended in an arrest and the use of pepper spray by campus cops.
Now the East Carolinian, ECU’s student newspaper, has its coverage up, and their piece is a well-written, thorough one. Ties up a lot of the loose ends that the national media left hanging.
I know it’s a small story, but this piece really is a reminder of what the student press is for.
A federal judge has ruled against a high school student who was barred from running for re-election as class secretary after she called school officials “douchebags” on her blog. The ruling highlights the unsettled nature of First Amendment law as it applies to high school students’ off-campus speech, as well as the limited protections courts have granted to student government.
The court had previously found that participation in student government “is a privilege,” and that students do not have a constitutional right to run for student government office “while engaging in uncivil and offensive communications regarding school administrators.” It found that the school had punished Doninger for “vulgar language,” not for criticizing school officials’ actions, and that they were within their rights to do so.
In its latest ruling, the same court found that although an appeals court had cast their previous argument into question, the administrators were protected from legal action. The underlying question at issue in this case is whether a student has “a right not to be prohibited from participating in a voluntary, extracurricular activity because of off campus speech” that the student has reason to expect will become known on campus, the court said, and that question is unresolved.
In 1979, an appeals court ruled in strong language that students generally cannot be punished for off-campus speech. The Doninger court, however, argued that…
“we are not living in the same world that existed in 1979. The students in Thomas were writing articles for an obscene publication on a typewriter and handing out copies after school. Today, students are connected to each other through e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, social networking sites, and text messages. An e-mail can be sent to dozens or hundreds of other students by hitting ‘send.’ … Off-campus speech can become on-campus speech with the click of a mouse.”
Campus cops at East Carolina University tackled and arrested one student and used pepper spray on others while breaking up a snowball fight earlier this week.
Several hundred ECU students joined the melee after a freak snowstorm hit the Greenville, NC campus on Tuesday, and the cops attempted unsuccessfully to reach dormitory staff and team coaches before intervening directly.
The arrested student had apparently hit a police officer in the back with a snowball.
(Hat tip to Joey Coleman, who passed along the story via Twitter.)
Update: Video of the arrest has found its way to YouTube:
“If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vim and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better world for tomorrow.”
–William Allen White, April 8, 1932.
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