What kinds of free speech and press rights should high school students have? Lots of censorship issues arise, as students try to learn and practice journalism and administrators try to rein in kids.
What do you think of the balance? How responsible can high school students be? How irresponsible? What subjects should be taboo?
Friday, September 18, 2009
High school students and speech
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
In high school, I believe that to some degree, the student school newspaper needs to be censored. However I think that this should only be the case when obvious factual errors occur. It appears that in the case of the Orange County High School of the Arts, the principal Sue Vaughn had to justifiable reason to stop the paper—and this I think is wrong. If you are going to stop the publication of the newspaper, I think it is important to have a specific set of reasons on why the information is faulty, biased, or unable to print. I think a more appropriate way to handle the matter could have been to set up a meeting about what the exact problem with the newspaper was. If the religious affiliation of the cafeteria services was prominent to the reason the staff was hired, I think that is a necessary piece of information and the public/school has the right to be informed on the reasons for getting new staff in the lunchroom. However, the article seemed a bit confusing to me because the two-different stories were completely contradictory of one another. With that said, I do believe that high school students should have slightly different censorship issues. I think that most college students would agree, it’s quite hilarious about how much our thinking has changed since our high school days. The person I was in high school is different than the person I am today, but it’s hard to explain that to a young high school student. Students themselves might regret opinions they had in high school, and be happy that what they wanted to publish never was.
After reading the original comment by Ericka, I would have to agree with the fact that there should be censorship when there are factual errors. This censorship though, should take place from the Editor in Chief of the Newspaper, who from my experience working with , was a teacher at my school (the head teacher of Journalism as well).
I would definitely like to bring up an example of where this issue came into play, and I would like to see if anyone has any comments or thoughts on the situation.
When I was a freshman in High School, I began working on the student newspaper early, but only as someone who wrote articles because you had to be an upperclassmen to work as an editor for the paper. Nonetheless, I was involved with the paper to a certain extent, and I read it every Friday when it came out and knew most of the editors on the paper.
To give a solid background on my school, it is the only public school in my 40,000+ person town, and it is very diverse. The statistics came out that show about 35% white student population, 30% black, 15% hispanic, 10% asian, and 10% other.
Anyway, around Decemeber of my Freshman year, in a weekly "A walk In My Shoes" column, a student who worked as an editor for the paper published an article that stirred up emotions and caused contraversy.
In her article she wrote about how she had a few AP classes with another student, who was black, and the beginning few paragraphs of her article addressed how she thought he was "dumb" jsut becuase he was black, and how she told him "I didn't expect this from you" after he receieved good grades early on. She also brought up stereotypes of food that she assumes all black students like when it was served in the cafeteria. The overall point of the article was not reached until later into it, when she explained how wrong she was and how aweful she felt for thinking this way. She explained the lessons she learned as well as the lessons she believes everyone still needs to learn.
Nevertheless, most students only read the first few paragraphs, and even those who read it all were still enraged by the language she used and the amount of racism they thought she displayed herself. In classes, some teachers that day and over the course of the next week would take time out of their day to discuss the article with their students and everyone seemed to have their own opinion on whether it was right or wrong. Some people didn't take so kindly to the situation, and they formed to sign a petition to get UPN news to cover the situation and also to get the student fired from her job as editor AND for the Editor in Chief, and head of the Journalism program to be fired as well. That day, the girl who wrote the article had to be escorted around school by two security guards due to the threats she was receiving.
The teachers and principles met and abruptly decided that the editor in chief was to be fired. This teacher, was one of the most loved teachers in the entire school and had a personal impact on my life as well as many other aspiring journalism students. We all gathered and began a petition to get him back his job! After hundreds of signatures, he did retain his job when all the smoke cleared.
Overall, here we ask should the student have been able to publish the article and should the editor in Chief have censored her from publishing the piece? I'll leave those answers up to you.
In response to Dan,
This is a difficult issue to tackle. On one hand you have an honest girl that is confronting her own insecurities and stereotypes (publicly) in an effort to make change. On the other hand, you have hurtful and heartfelt stereotypes published in a diverse community/ high school.
But overall-- I believe that this article is a good thing. I think it is a good thing because it caused controversy and class discussion. It forced students at a young age to talk about these issues--not just let them go and pretend like these stereotypes do not exist anymore. Although our nation has come a long way with racism, we often forget about many of the things that still do exist today. We forget or pretend that racism was something of the past because it is uncomfortable to admit that our nation still has a long way to go. This article was the perfect way for classrooms to address these issues head on, and talk about them as a community.
I came from a small town, and my high school was almost all white. I remember that when I took my first ethnic studies class in college my freshman year, ( Soc 132)-- I was shocked to find out that minorities were still decimated upon. Now I know I was probably more naive than most college students, but looking back--an article like this one and class discussion could have really raised my awareness about the “new form,” of racism and decimation in today’s world.
I would be curious to find out what the title of the article was published in the school newspaper. I know it was in the “A walk in My Shoes” column—but speaking of leads (something we have learned about all week) I think it would be extremely important in this case to include how WRONG she was and how her thinking has been constructed from lies and hurtful stereotypes (in the lead). I believe if the lead addressed the positive aspect of her overall learning experience—perhaps kids that only read the first half of the article would respect the writer a little more for being so open and honest about the situation.
While on the subject of censorship, I remembered an article I saw earlier this week that can be viewed at: http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/cpk-server-fired/
A California Pizza Kitchen employee was fired based on his Twitter update that criticized their new uniform. His tweet reads, "@calpizzakitchen black button ups are the lamest shit ever!!!" If this comment had been overheard, instead of viewed on a social media outlet, would the employee have been fired? To what degree is the public expected to censor their opinions and comments on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook?
I personally do not think the employee should have been fired. He is entitled to his own opinion of the uniform. Moreover, CPK's reputation is not built on their uniform, it is built on their food.
The California Pizza Kitchen incident highlights how serious companies are about monitoring their images on social media.
Almost all of the recent job-search advice I've seen stress the importance of keeping a "clean online image." That means posting nothing online that you wouldn't want a present or future employer to see.
It amazes me how much information people are willing to share over social media. Some of it is good and fosters diversity and creativity, but SO many people cross the line and post ridiculous and/or insignificant things.
I agree that the employee shouldn't necessarily have been fired, but why they felt the need to spew their dissatication with their uniform to the world via the internet is beyond me! Has anyone who has ever worked in food service ever had the good fortune of wearing a fantastic-looking uniform? Not many, so who cares? Just wear it, bear it, keep your job and keep making money.
In response to Ericka,
I agree fully with everything you said and that is exactly why I chose to bring it up. You never really do know the extent of people's insecurities and how they truly towards another group of people, specific persons in particular, or towards an idea.
When we circulate our feelings on these ideas, whether right or wrong, we then have the opportunity to discuss and bring reason into the conversation.
The question though may have been if the issue was that of ignorance or of misunderstanding someone using the wrong choice of words to convey the right message.
What was truly amazing was to watch, listen, and participate in those class discussions after the incident, and really get a feel for how everyone else felt and how you felt yourself.
Post a Comment