A bill introduced by state Rep. Don Myers, R-Derby, would require every school district in the state to set up three-member oversight committees to advise student publications on matters of content and “appropriateness.” In an Eagle editorial, we explain why this is a very bad idea. Myers says the committees would just offer advice, in an attempt to bring some “adult” perspective to editorial matters. But someone already has that job — the faculty adviser. State lawmakers should quit meddling in local school affairs.
The executive director of the Virginia-based First Amendment Center has weighed in against Myers’ bill, also noting with regret that “at many schools in many states, once-vigorous journalism programs are going away or gone, as emphasis has swung to math-science curricula at the expense of such ‘fringe’ activities as a student newspaper and yearbook, along with music and art programs.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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25 Comments
The bill is a very, very bad idea, IMHO. Let the faculty advisor do his/her job, and otherwise keepa ya hands off.
If you live on government money, you get government rules.
Agreed VT.very bad idea – especially if the advisory board has an agenda (hidden or not)
If this is the best use of his time, he ought to stay home and hope for a cure!
Once again Republicans are looking out for more and more ways to deny civil liberties to the populace. I wonder if Don Myers goosesteps to the office every morning.
And these guys are “Conservatives”… absurd.
Don Myers, Ted Powers…Would Southern Sedgwick County PLEASE quit proving Mike Hayden was right?
Hey, Myers, book burning next?? In the 1960’s, USD 260 was #1 in the State, in everything. Today, it’s an also-ran. It’s heartbreaking to those of us who were there. Myers is a Nazi, if there ever was one. I would say he should burn in Hell, but I wouldn’t want him to be warm while the rest of us are paying high heating bills and still freezing our asses off.
I guess this came from some parents who were ‘upset’ about some content of a yearbook.
Did those same parents take ANY initiative and volunteer to help with the yearbook? Of course not! They expect the government to do EVERYTHING regarding raising their children.
With that attitude..the kids have a great chance of having the government care for them…like, 10 to 20 years at a time…
How about our legislature pass a bill requiring everyone elected to be a Congressperson to be able to recite the Bill of Rights from memory. That would prevent morons like Don Myers from ever holding office.
Doug,Reciting the bill of rights won’t help; they’ve also got to believe in it down to the bone!
What a relief! I know a Don Myers, but it isn’t the same man. I was ready to write a very heated letter and tell him where he could do with his bill.
The quote from the executive director of the First Amendment Center is right on. Although I don’t think science and math should slide, neither should journalism and English studies. They should all be evenly balanced in the education of our children. The literacy of our country is extremely important. Just take a look at our leader and see what happens when it isn’t. ;)
In the same vein, I also don’t think SPORTS should become the main focus of schools where extra-curricular activities are concerned. But that’s another topic, entirely.
Give students the freedom to present their ideas, or they’ll stop having ideas to present.
Wondering if things are as they were: back in the day, the costs of producing (publishing, binding, etc.) of yearbooks was paid for by purchases of the same by students, and the sale of advertising. This, of course, does not include the costs of the instructor teaching the class. The sale of advertising was critical to the fiscal success of the yearbook.
If the good folks of Derby are that upset over the prior year’s yearbook, then they should exercise the power of the purse, and not buy advertising therein. This would send the message of journalistic responsibility being a part of the freedom to publish. As may be clear from my earlier post, I would hope such action would not be taken, but the business people certainly have the right to so do.
Damned good point, my friend!
Student journalists operating in school, college or university facilities don’t have First Amendment rights in the use of those facilities to promote their views. Property law trumps free-speech law. The “public space” of public universities generally allows greater freedom of expression, at least in principle, than in private education institutions, and in K-12 public schools, where students do not have adult rights–for example, just watch a 16 year old tell his principal, “I’m dropping out, I don’t need to be here,” and see what happens.
Public schools are compulsory-behavior systems. Are they anti-freedom? Absolutely. But public schools fall under the police-powers segment of government, which actually isn’t explicitly provided for in the U.S. Constitution, although it falls under “powers reserved unto states”, which the Supreme Court supports or denies according to a majority of its members’ personal ideologies.
Many commentators castigate “legislation from the bench”. Personally, I believe that such “legislation” is acceptable if it follows the core moral precept of our nation’s founding, to wit: if it expands citizens’ liberties. If court fiat curtails liberties without constitutional support, and seeks to impose needless suffering upon Americn citizens, then it is anti-American, and freedom-curtailing justices should be impeached.
A recent example was Raiche v. Gonzales, the medical marijuana case. The best-informed people, suffering disease victims and the medical establishment, found medical marijuana prescription to reduce suffering. To wit it was HUMANE. A majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that federal law trumped humanity. Except they failed to mention that federal drug-control law, first implemented in the early 20th century, was itself unconstitutional, unless it involved interstate trade, which local marijuana cultivation and sale did not.
Our nation’s running other countries is unconstitutional. Invading another country, and making it a U.S. territory, with pathway to statehood, such that its inhabitants have U.S. citizen rights, is one matter. Having emissaries pull puppet strings, as occurred in the so-called “Banana Wars” and the post-war occupation of Japan, in which the defeated were not given U.S. citizen rights, and in Iraq today, is completely different. Read the Constitution. Where does it say that any branch of the U.S. Government can RUN another country, which really means that our government personnel are working for two different countries? Did the Iraqi people choose Maliki and his opponents as prime minister candidates? U.S. officials determined the candidate slate. Unconstitutional
When this is done, and American government officers create and then enforce different laws for another nation than those of the United States, but designed by the U.S., under prolonged occupation, that’s far beyond the pale of constitutionally-authorized activities.
You can defeat a nation, and then put forth treaty terms that protect the U.S. from the threat of offensive hostility against the U.S., which is constitutional, but you cannot dictate the terms of another nation’s system of government, if the system the nation’s inhabitants create per se doesn’t threaten the lives and welfare of Americans.
If you contrive an argument that something like Iraq’s potential oil-resource trade with China threatens the economic welfare of Americans, then the solution is to make Iraq a U.S. territory, with a clear path to U.S. statehood. Then the U.S. can constitutionally govern Iraq. If Iraqis would not want this–and who is to say they would reject this?–then it’s up to them to decide what they want to, as long as it doesn’t involve physically attacking the 50 states of the United States, Puerto Rico, and custodial territories, such as Guam, American Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
Ensuring that Iraq’s oil resources are controlled by U.S. oil companies? That’s not within U.S. constitutional purview to impose.
The official school newspaper is a publication of the school. It may be made by students but the school is still responsible for financing it and may be held liable for any slander or libel actions against it. Now, if a group of students decide they do not wish to publish a newspaper under the supervision of the school, I certainly support their right to publish their own paper (or web site) in which they can write whatever they wish.
Right, Kev, you have identified why a ‘faculty advisor’ is deemed necessary in high school journalism. As a former “high school journalist” long, long ago, I readily admit the need to rein me in from time to time for the reasons you suggest; however, I feel there’s no need for the action proposed by Rep. Myers.
Herr Heart: Have one: an Attack, that is. Soon. Now. That is an Order. F**king Nazis!
John Adams said “We are a nation of laws, not men.” All nations have laws. But most people understood that he meant “principles”. Noble principles. Such as those espoused by John Locke, the “father” of the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, Adams failed to uphold them entirely. As in backing and enforcing the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” prosecuting First Amendment protected protest. Ahh, human fallacy.
I dont know the complete story on what the offending speech was, that triggered this proposal.
However, the PUBLISHER of the Eagle has final control over the contents of the Eagle.
Who is the PUBLISHER of a student publication?
I worked on the East High School paper, the WSU Parnasus (Yearbook) and the WSU Newspaper.I was paid for my work on the WSU publications. I figured out that I could make more money selling advertising for the paper than I could writing for it, but that is another story. I always knew who the boss was, and that I could not write whatever I wanted to write, and I could not run any advertising I wanted to run.Approval was necessary.
Students today, likewise, have first amendment rights. However, student rights should not exceed the rights of those who write for the Eagle.
This is probably not a Constitutional issue. Don Myers is a good guy. As an elected representative from Derby who votes on legislation which funds Derby Schools, I think Myers has a right to propose solutions to any problem he encounters there. The State is the publisher of the Derby paper. Myers represents one opinion of the state in this matter, we will see what the other officials say.
I have not decided if Myers’ idea is a good one or not, but the publisher of the Eagle is not a Nazi when that publisher decides not to print something. Neither is Myers!
The taxpayers are the publishers, where student publications are concernded.
Students won’t learn responsibilty if we micro-manage all of their publishing decisions.
Likewise, students also won’t learn much about the real world, if we grant student journalists more power than we give to corporate journalists.
By the way, you First Amendment purists will choke on your words if some group of kids comes up with an anti-abortion yearbook or an editorial position debunking global warming.
It is already happening in colleges all over the country.
Several Univerities have refused to discipline leftist students who stole publications they didnt like, or shouted down speakers they did not want other students to hear. Free speech, to some of you, means free liberal speach. Some of you only get offended when YOUR views are challenged or silenced.
I am truly a free speach purist, for virtually all forms of speech but kiddie porn, I want to see a compelling government interest for any government control on that speech.
I oppose most campaign finance legislation, and oppose John McCain, precisely because I hold the First Amendment speech guarantees to be sacred.
This case is a matter of management. The State has a right to manage its publications, and Derby High’s paper and yearbook are government publications.
Is this the best management solution?
Again, I don’t know how I feel about that yet.
long daydyslexia creeping in—speechI know, I know —dont “censor” me for poor spelling.
I don’t know tha tI have a lot to add . . . I agree with most of you.
This law is, at best, not needed; at worst, it could chill the first amendment just where we want students to most understand it’s freedoms and responsibilities. Dumb.
PAUL ROSELL,
“By the way, you First Amendment purists will choke on your words if some group of kids comes up with … an editorial position debunking global warming.It is already happening in colleges all over the country.”
When they’re stupid enough to post an anti-global warming op-ed on their college web site, the comments, and/or opposing op-ed, ‘rip them a big new one’ with the facts.
Did you know that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Repug-CA) used to used to be a journalist?
Please enjoy this video of him incorrectly guessing what caused a dramatic climate change 55 million years ago.
Rep. Rohrabacher: Global Warming May Have Been Caused By ‘Dinosaur Flatulence’ http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/10/dino-flatulence
Cosmic rays cause warming cosmos.
Uniform dogma is the antithesis of the scientific process.
True science does not censor thought, but the global warming fanatics are doing just that!
PAUL ROSELL,
Svensmark again/still? Please list the names of all “true” scientists who agree with him.
CO2 accounts for up to 30% of our Earth’s greenhouse effect.Why should humans have insignifcant impact, when we increase CO2 from 280 to 380 ppm (and STILL CLIMBING)? Plus our CH4, CFC’s, HFC’s, SF6, etc..