Wash. Students Sue
School District
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, December 15, 2005
SEATTLE -- The co-editors of a
high school newspaper are suing their school district, claiming their
free-speech rights are being violated by officials demanding to review editions
of the paper before distribution.
Sara Michelle Eccleston, 17, and Claire Marie Lueneburg, 18, argue that the
Kodak has long served as a public forum for students at Everett High School with
no content oversight by school administrators. They have refused to submit
to prior review.
But district spokeswoman Gay Campbell said that the district has an explicit
policy allowing prepublication review.
''We've complied with the law in every way,'' she said. ''We're sorry the
students have decided to take this course of action.''
The root of the controversy is that the Kodak reported on the hiring of the high
school's new principal, Catherine Matthews, who took over this fall, said Mitch
Cogdill, the students' lawyer. Matthews was the third choice of the
students on the hiring committee, and the Kodak ran articles suggesting their
voice was ignored.
In October, Matthews told the Kodak staff that the paper couldn't be published
unless she approved it in advance. She also objected to the masthead,
which says the Kodak is a ''student forum,'' the lawsuit said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that school districts have very limited
authority to exercise censorship in public forums. But school newspapers
put together in a class, overseen by a faculty adviser and published using
school resources are not considered a ''public forum'' unless the school
district has set them up as one.
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