Student Newspaper Shut Down Over Article Review

Very interesting case involving prior restraint. How do you come down on it? This is an excerpt--to read the entire story click here.

Faribault superintendent shuts down student paper

FARIBAULT, Minn. - Faribault School District Superintendent Bob Stepaniak shut down the high school's student newspaper on Monday, after the student editors refused to allow the him review an article before publication.

The article in question was about the investigation into a middle school teacher who had been subject of a complaint about inappropriate communication with a student. The teacher has not been charged, but has been on paid administrative leave since September.

The newspaper's student editor Christen Hildebrandt offered to present the article to the district's attorneys, instead of to the administration, but Stepaniak refused and said in an e-mail: "We are at loggerheads and therefore I am shutting down the Echo (hopefully temporarily) until this issue is resolved."

Both the students and the superintendent claim they are on solid legal ground.

Stepaniak said the issue is about the fundamental question of whether a district's administration has the right to review articles prior to publication.

He pointed to a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, which upheld the right of administrators in a suburban St. Louis, Mo., school district to censor school newspaper articles about teen pregnancy and the effects of divorce on children.

"The issue here is clearly whether district administration can look at an article before publication. That's what it boils down to," Stepaniak said. "I'm very hesitant to give up that right or say we do not control the Echo as a student activity, even through there's a natural hesitation to oversee it."