KANSAS — Two Lawrence High School seniors garneredsuspensions last week after distributing an independent newspaperto their fellow students.Principal Dick Patterson called the work of Lee Dunfield and BradQuellhorst "disruptive to school," after barring themfrom attending classes on Sept. 1 and 5, when he held separatemeetings with the students and their parents.Dunfield and Quellhorst distributed 200 copies of their publication– Low Budget-– Aug. 31 between classes and after school.The paper was intended as a parody of the school’s official studentnewspaper, The Budget. Quellhorst criticized Patterson for punishing non-offensive expressionby students. "I believe that Mr. Patterson’s comments arein direct violation of the First Amendment," he told theAssociated Press.Dunfield said Patterson encouraged the young editors to submittheir work to the official school paper.
"He doesn’t want an unofficial newspaper to be on campus,"Dunfield said. "He thought that others will want to followup on that idea and make papers worse than this."