This post will be of a quite different topic than I usually speak of. I am a high school student and in today's post I will discuss a matter that has brought near chaos to our school and community. At my high school there is a student newspaper, The Statesman, and they recently published a story in the paper about "hooking up". This caused a great uproar from the more conservative and traditional members of our community. I am traditional and conservative, but if this is what students do, fine, it is a student newspaper. Now a once stolid school board and administration has taken matters into their owns hands regarding a student newspaper. The paper is now under censorship and the newspaper adviser's job may possibly be lost. Under a Supreme Court decision in 1988, Hazlewood, there are very few things we in the student press can do. Schools can censor, but just because they can doesn't make it right. The students like the paper. All 3,400 copies of the paper are gone and many believe the student snatched them all up. So why would a school board want to censor something students enjoy reading. School boards make a big deal about low reading levels and know they say students can only read certain things. We want to encourage reading in any way. Besides there was nothing obscene in the issue or in past issues. The student voice is very important and censoring that is not right in today's society. I hope you agree with me and the near 600 and growing group on Facebook, to help save the Statesman and show your support for the student voice, keeping it away from censorship.
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