‘Nurseries of democracy’: Northwest student journalism elimination a ‘Saga’

Northwest Public Schools administrators eliminated its student newspaper in what some former students and press freedom advocates call an act of censorship.

While working on the school year-ending issue of the Saga newspaper, staffers had little idea its student-written content would mark a 54-year-old publication’s abrupt end. The edition included student editorials on LGBTQ topics, along with a news article titled, “Pride and prejudice: LGBTQIA+” on the origins of Pride Month (June) and the history of homophobia. Other articles explained registering for classes, highlighted achievements by the Future Business Leaders of America chapter and told the story of a group of siblings’ adoption.

Northwest Public Schools – located in Grand Island – Board of Education Vice President Zach Mader said that in the past, “I do think there have been talks of doing away with our news if we were not going to be able to control content that we saw (as) inappropriate.”

He cautiously explained the apparent reason for the Saga’s demise.

“The very last issue that came out this year, there was… a little bit of hostility amongst some,” the school board member said. “There were editorials that were essentially, I guess what I would say, LGBTQ.”

On Sunday, May 22, a Northwest School District employee emailed the Grand Island Independent press and advertising teams to cancel the company’s Northwest Viking Saga printing services. Notification of staff and students of the ’s elimination came May 19, according to the employee. The June issue was printed on May 16.

The Northwest employee said in the email they were informed “the was cut because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue's editorial content.”

The Saga staff was also reprimanded in April 2022 after publishing preferred pronouns and names in bylines and articles, according to students. District officials told students to use only birth names going forward.

The Saga had been published since 1968, thriving in its final year. Northwest student media, including Saga staffers, earned third place at the 2022 Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) State Journalism Championship. Individual winners included Emelia Richling, Emily Krupicka, Audrianna Wiseman, Kiera Avila and Treasure Mason.

District officials have declined to give an exact date when the decision to eliminate the was made — and why. Northwest’s 2021-2022 journalism teacher declined interview requests for this story.

“It sounds like a ham-fisted attempt to censor students and discriminate based on disagreement with perspectives and articles that were featured in the student news,” surmised Sara Rips, legal counsel for ACLU of Nebraska.

***

Mader said of the student news’s final issue: “There (were) some things that were…”

The school board member paused, thinking.

He continued: “If (taxpayers) read that (issue), they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”

Dan Leiser, president of the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education, said of the stories in question, “most people were upset they were written,” though he didn’t specify who “most people” consisted of.

Leiser questioned whether eliminating the based on editorial content — in this case, the June 2022 issue — mattered.

“If 90% of people say the (stories) shouldn’t have been written in the first place, they weren't happy with reading it in the news — I’m not talking me, I'm talking high school students — why do you think this is newsworthy?”

The freedom for print media to determine its own editorial content is constitutionally protected, a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974).

“The decision by the administration to eliminate the student news violates students' right to free speech, unless the school can show a legitimate educational reason for removing the option to participate in a class … that publishes award-winning material,” said Nebraska Press Association attorney Max Kautsch.

Kautsch specializes in media law in Nebraska and Kansas.

“It is hard to imagine what that legitimate reason could be,” he added.

Emma Smith, Saga’s assistant editor in 2022, said the staffers tried to have their fingers on the pulse of what Northwest students were talking about.

Rips said, “Student journalism teaches students how to discern and investigate, build effective work based on verifiable facts, and policies.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil liberties group advocating for student free speech. Lindsie Rank, a FIRE student press counsel, said even if legal, censoring student expression will “almost always run counter to democratic values.”

“As (Supreme Court) Justice (Stephen) Breyer pointed out, ‘America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy,’” Rank said.

***

Initially, Northwest Superintendent Jeff Edwards said the district was “looking at some different curriculum.” Edwards said principals, the director of teaching and learning and he are the primary decision makers in axing or adding classes.

Jeanette Ramsey, Northwest Public Schools director of teaching and learning, confirmed Edwards’s referral, saying that yes, she was the primary curriculum decision maker, assisted by a “team of people.”

However, when the Saga’s elimination was brought up, Ramsey said, firmly, “I was not involved in that decision at all. I was zero involved in that decision.”

Ramsey said the decision to end the Saga and related journalism class was made “between PJ Smith, the principal, and Dr. (Jeff) Edwards, our superintendent.”

Smith directed questions about the Saga’s elimination to Edwards.

The process to change s and curriculum is not necessarily governed by administrators, said David Jespersen, communications administrator for the Nebraska Department of Education. School boards have the autonomy to exercise different procedures, Jespersen said.

“Some districts are heavily involved and would need to grant approval; many districts let the superintendent handle it. As far as the state is concerned both are fine — it is a local decision.”

The Northwest Public Schools Board of Education had little — if anything — to do with the Saga’s elimination, Leiser indicated.

“From my standpoint, (from) a board standpoint, Dr. Edwards filled me in on the situation a little bit. He didn't tell me everything. I guess I'm trusting the way he's handling it. He's got it under control.”

After Northwest Public Schools’ regular-session school board meeting on July 7, The Independent again asked Edwards why the Saga and its class had been cut. He was also for the first time presented with the alleged basis for the newspaper’s elimination: the Pride Month issue.

He repeatedly responded only that it was an “administrative” decision, but did not address the reason.

***

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel for Student Press Law Center, said ending student news s is becoming a more common form of censorship. The center is a nonpartisan group that advocates for student journalism press freedom.

“You can't censor a student news you no longer have.”

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has been working directly with the Saga’s most recent staff on potential recourse.

“By far, the number one thing that will get student media censored is a story that criticizes the school or that administrators somehow think makes them look bad,” Hiestand said.

First Amendment rights in public high schools were affirmed in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in 1969. The school argued a 13-year-old student could not wear a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War.

“In the Tinker case, the Supreme Court said that students and teachers don't lose their First Amendment and freedom of expression rights at the schoolhouse gates,” said Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. “We believe that that should apply to student journalists as well.”

In the Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) journalism students at Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis, Missouri, wrote stories about teen pregnancy and the impact of divorce on their peers. The principal deleted pages containing those stories prior to publication without notifying students.

Because the student news was sponsored by the school, the Supreme Court ruled the principal was not violating the First Amendment.

Referring to the Hazelwood case, Harris said, “The Supreme Court created a carve out of First Amendment rights, specifically applying to student journalists, which allows school administrators to censor students work for any quote-unquote, ‘legitimate pedagogical reason.’”

Censorship in the name of Hazelwood is a “vague standard, but it allows for… a large amount of discretion by administrators who apply it rather broadly,” Harris said.

But, she added, “When student journalists are censored, we are teaching them that facts and truth — even when they are uncomfortable — are not acceptable.

***

On his birth certificate, former Saga staff member Marcus Pennell’s first name is “Meghan.” Marcus is a transgender man. In the June 2022 Saga, Pennell had his name reverted to “Meghan” in his byline.

“The (name) thing was the first big blow,” he said.

Pennell said he has been subject to adversity because of being transgender, but hearing directly from the school administrators was different.

“It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, ‘We don't really want you here,’” Pennell said of his regulated byline. “You know, that was a big deal for me.”

Alison Gash, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, said “deadnaming” — calling someone by their birth name as opposed to their preferred name — is a form of “erasure.”

Gash is an academic expert in United States courts, gender, race, sexuality, same-sex marriage, constitutional rights and public policy.

“The pointed targeting of erasing somebody's pronoun, of erasing somebody's gender is erasing somebody's identity in such a hostile way,” she said. “It can't be read as anything but ‘I don't value you.’”

Hiestand said that until recently, few controversies over using preferred names in student media have been reported to the Student Press Law Center.

The concept of banning preferred names was new to Michelle Hassler, an assistant journalism professor at UNL.

“I think we're getting into some additional rights here,” Hassler said, noting institutions like the Associated Press recognize the practice. Hassler is also the executive director of the Nebraska High School Press Association.

Hiestand said he was unaware of any formal U.S. Department of Education opinions concerning preferred names.

“I can say with certainty there is no law that would require the use of a legal name instead of a preferred name,” he added.

Emma Smith graduated in 2022. She said her class was informed the decision to ban preferred names was made by the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education.

Students, including Emma Smith, said district Policy 6391 was referenced when an administrator handed down the district’s preferred name decree.

The policy advises teachers to teach only age-appropriate controversial topics, present them with objectivity (“do not include your own biases”) and not expect students to reach an agreement, according to documents on the district website. The documents do not define “controversial.”

The policy also states, “Remember that the policy of the board is designed to protect you as well as your students from unfair or inconsiderate criticism whenever your students are studying a controversial subject.”

The school board last reviewed and revised the policy in December of 2017. In an email, Edwards said “no public records exist” when asked for documentation concerning 6391’s development.

***

The Independent submitted a series of public records requests to Northwest Public Schools in July, asking for information relating to the elimination of the and the possible reasons for its end.

In response, the district said the majority of those requests couldn’t be fulfilled until Sept. 1, with costs ranging from just shy of $3,000 for an initial request and $1,140 for a narrowed-down request.

Harris seemed dubious. “(SPLC is) very troubled by what's been going on in the school district, and the lack of transparency and the censorship that's taking place.”

“Someone in administration needs to be really clear about the reason (the Saga was eliminated)... they are getting really close to violating some First Amendment rights,” Hassler said, though she said she hasn’t heard an official reason for the elimination of the Saga and its related class.

Arguably, no one has.

Hassler said, “That's even more problematic: the reasoning isn't out there.”

In the realm of higher education, the same scenario would violate the First Amendment, Rank said. “For high school journalists the answer isn't as clear-cut.”

The FIRE attorney added that the Hazelwood ruling calls for a legitimate instructional reason for regulation.

“I struggle to think of a legitimate educational reason for punishing student journalists for discussing Pride Month, but the bar can unfortunately be low,” Rank said.

“At this moment in our democracy,” Harris said, “we need people asking hard questions and reporting facts.”

***

Rips, ACLU of Nebraska’s LGBTQIA+ counsel, said simply having an environment like the Saga’s newsroom can have a big impact.

“Kids need to feel safe… when kids are bullied… knowing that the school has their back, knowing that their parents have their back can make things like that more tolerant,” Rips said.

Gash said, “There's a compounding effect, being a young, queer person, having to confront adults who are supposed to be on your side, in your corner, helping you to grow and develop to be a valued member of our society.”

Emma Smith is firmly planted in her classmates’ corner.

“Seeing them go through that, especially after… being able to go by (preferred names)... having it taken away from them was really upsetting.”

In an editorial, “The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill: Making students existing controversial,” Pennell wrote:

“...most LGBT students are scared to even show up to class most days. If the concern was really for the quality of education for our children, why not ban all discussion (concerning sexuality)… if we aren’t saying ‘gay’, why can we say ‘straight?’”

It was printed in the final issue of the Saga.