Viking Sagacensorship incident

Front page of the June 2022 issue of theViking Saga

TheViking Sagais the student newspaper ofNorthwest High SchoolinGrand Island, Nebraska,in the United States. In April 2022, the staff of the paper was told thattransgenderwriters should not use their preferred names on bylines and instead mustuse the names they had been given at birth.

On May 16, the paper published an issue which discussedPride Monthand otherLGBTQ-related topics. Three days later, the school board and superintendent eliminated the school's journalism program and closed down the paper. In response, theAmerican Civil Liberties Unionfiled a lawsuit asserting that transgender staff member Marcus Pennell'sFirst Amendmentright to free speech had been violated. The lawsuit was dismissed on the grounds that Pennell, having already graduated, lackedstanding.

Background

Northwest High School in 2022

Northwest High Schoolis a secondary school inGrand Island, Nebraskabuilt in 1962.The school's student newspaper, theViking Saga,began publication in 1968,running for 54 years.In 2022, the last year of publication, student journalists from Northwest Public Schools district finished in third place in theNebraska School Activities Association's state journalism championship.

In April 2022, Northwest Public Schools issued a reprimand to theViking Sagabecausetransgenderstaff were using their preferred pronouns and chosen names in articlebylines.Margaret Renkl,in aNew York Timesguest essay, observed that theViking Sagahad "at least three transgender staff members".The administration instructed the staff that they should be using birth names, a practice known asdeadnaming.According to Marcus Pennell, a transgender columnist for theViking Sagawho graduated in 2022, the students were coerced into obeying by being told that their faculty advisor would suffer the consequences if they did not comply. Pennell described the administration as bullying LGBT students.

Shutdown

The June 2022 issue, printed on May 16, included a number of student editorials onLGBTQ-related topics, as well as a news article aboutPride Month,which occurs annually in June.On May 19, theViking Saga'sstaff was informed that the journalism program was to be shut down. A letter was sent to the newspaper's printer on May 22 canceling the use of their printing services. Jeanette Ramsey, the director of teaching and learning of Northwest Public Schools, stated that the decision to shut down the newspaper was made by the school principal P. J. Smith and the school board'ssuperintendent of schoolsJeff Edwards.

Dan Leiser, the president of the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education, remarked in reference to the controversial stories that "most people were upset they were written".Zach Mader, the vice president of the board, stated: "I do think there have been talks of doing away with our newspaper if we were not going to be able to control content that we saw (as) inappropriate."An unnamed employee of the Northwest School District stated that "the (journalism and newspaper) program was cut because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue's editorial content".

Response

On August 31, Edwards said that news reports on the incident by the media were "both correct and incorrect", adding that publication of theViking Sagawas only paused and that other student journalism activities such as theyearbookwere continuing. He stated that it was "misleading" to characterize the reason for the actions against the newspaper as being based on a small number of published articles.

Mike Hiestand, a senior legal counsel for theStudent Press Law Center(SPLC), said that schools were increasingly shutting down student newspapers as a form ofcensorship,observing that "you can't censor a student newspaper you no longer have". He observed that the most common censorship trigger was a story that criticized the school or one that the administration perceived as making them look bad.According to a lawyer from the SPLC, who was a former student of the school and was present at the time of the incident, the administration considered it "controversial" that the student journalists were using their preferred names instead of the names they were assigned at birth.SPLC executive director Hadar Harris said that this was not the only case of censorship of a school newspaper in the state, writing that "Nebraska has become a center for a number of egregious censorship cases in recent years, but theSaga'scase also indicates a nationwide trend of administrators increasingly censoring LGBTQIA+ related content, including chosen names and pronouns ".

The Nebraska branch of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) said that the move wasviewpoint discriminationthat violated theConstitution of the United States.In a letter to Edwards, the ACLU chapter said that shutting down theViking Sagaviolated the students' rights under theFirstandFourteenth Amendments,as well asTitle IXprotections againstsexual discrimination,noting that "the district cannot censor student journalism because district leadership disagrees with LGBTQ rights and wishes to keep students from encountering viewpoints that do not align with that perceived viewpoint".

In November 2022,New York Cityschools chancellorDavid Bankswas asked about the incident during a roundtable discussion with student journalists from local schools. He stated:

I stand for freedom of expression for student journalists here and all across the country... Education should always be about hearing varying points of views whether you agree with [them] or disagree with [them]. You may not be supportive of the LGBTQ community in your own personal space... but to say we can't even have a series where we're talking about those issues is completely wrong.

Commenting on the statement by chancellor Banks, Hillary Davis of the SPLC said:

It is important to note that there is nothing in New York City or in New York State that prevents an issue like what happened with theViking Sagafrom happening at any school in New York. And so while the chancellor is giving a full throated support and that's amazing, there is currently no law, there is no policy

In October 2022, Ava Tse, news editor of theLatin School of Chicago'sForumargued that theViking Saga'sshutdown "probably does not violate the students' First Amendment rights".She did however note a trend towards increasing censorship of student newspapers, withThe Forumand theUniversity of Chicago Laboratory High School'sMidwaybeing unusual among independent high school papers in centralChicagoin that neither is subject to administration censorship. Tse pointed to theFrancis W. Parker School'sParker Weeklyas having "been subjected to an administrative approval process since the spring of 2019".Tse also said that as these three were all independent schools, their papers may enjoy fewer constitutional protections than papers at public schools.

In November 2022,The Grand Island Independentreported that – according to Northwest teacher Kirsten Gilliland – the school administration had agreed to let the paper continue publication, in an on-line format and under the supervision of a different faculty member. Gilliland was the paper's previous adviser.In February 2023,The Independentreported that English teacher Alex Hull had taken over teaching the journalism class and was the new adviser to the paper, but theViking Sagahad not yet resumed publication.

Lawsuit

On March 31, 2023, the Nebraska ACLU filed a lawsuit infederal courtagainst the Northwest Public School District and superintendent Edwards on behalf of the Nebraska High School Press Association and Marcus Pennell, citing violations of theFirst Amendment.ACLU policy counsel Jane Seu stated that "the filing is symbolic of a greater national push against LGBTQ youth".

The suit was dismissed on October 16, 2023 in an order by federal senior judgeJohn M. Gerrard.Gerrard determined that Pennell could not prove injury because having already graduated, the shutting down of the paper no longer impacted him. Nebraska ACLU's Rose Godinez disagreed with Gerrard's finding that the plaintiffs lackedstanding;she emphasized that the ruling was narrowly focused on standing and "we welcome its general warning to school administrators on restricting speech in student newspapers".A statement by the SPLC said that the ruling "cautioned schools that viewpoint discrimination in student media is unconstitutional", and quoted Judge Gerrard:

school administrators would be wise to remember that policies and decisions to restrict speech in student newspapers... may run afoul of the First Amendment if they 'reflect an effort to suppress expression merely because the public officials oppose a speaker's view'.

SPLC executive director Gary Green added that "the ruling was a clear signal to schools not to overstep the First Amendment" and that "officials should heed the judge's warning to avoid censoring student media for speech they simply disagree with".

Related Supreme Court cases

Scott Shackford ofReasonmagazine took exception to the school administration's closure of theViking Saga,observing that the decision was based not on the quality of the writing but rather on the opinions expressed by the publication. They said that practicing writing and debating skills was an important part of the educational experience and cited two relevantUnited States Supreme Courtdecisions.Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District(1969) asserted that "students do not lose their First Amendment freedoms on school grounds" butHazelwood v. Kuhlmeier(1988) gave school boards "wide authority to censor school newspapers".

In her essay, Margaret Renkl said that the censorship allowed byHazelwoodcould be applied to student newspapers which were "part of a school curriculum" and had to be for "educational reasons".Renkl quoted an analysis ofHazelwoodby theLegal Information InstituteofCornell Law School:

Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.

In October 2022, Mike Hiestand of the SPLC toldRachel MartinofWNYCthat based onTinker,"as long as the speech didn't result in a serious disruption of normal school activity, so as long as it was lawful, as long as it was peaceful, that was pretty much where the bar was".According to Hiestand, that changed in 1988 when the Supreme Court ruled "that school officials could censor school-sponsored student newspapers where they had a reasonable educational justification".

Max Kautsch, an attorney for the Nebraska Press Association who specializes in media law, said that "the decision by the administration to eliminate the student newspaper 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 ", adding that" it is hard to imagine what the legitimate reason could be ".The Grand Island Independentreported that print media has a constitutional right to determine its editorial content, citing the 1974 caseMiami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo.

External links

• Viking Saga, June 2022, full issue
• Lee Enterprises editorial staff (September 4, 2022)."Editorial: Student journalists' press freedoms attacked by school officials".Omaha World-Herald.RetrievedSeptember 5,2022.
• Pennell, Marcus (September 7, 2022)."Opinion: My high school paper published a 'pride' issue. Then we got canceled".The Washington Post.RetrievedSeptember 7,2022.