Sex, drugs and the news

Risqué content can quickly become risky for student journalists. A few bleep-worthy words or a more-than-suggestive sex column can earn editors and reporters anything from an inbox flooded with angry emails to an earful from school officials to threats to the publication itself. So how to handle it? Students and advisers dished on the agony and ecstasy of pushing the limits in campus journalism.

Miss. student settles lawsuit after being excluded from yearbook because of her tuxedo

The Mississippi teenager whose yearbook portrait was removed because she wore a tuxedo will have her photo displayed alongside her classmates’ in the school library, as part of a settlement reached with the school district last week.The Copiah County School District also will scrap its portrait policy that required male students to wear tuxedos and female students to wear drapes for their official yearbook photos, the ACLU of Mississippi announced.Instead, all students will don graduation caps and gowns for their photos.Ceara Sturgis, a 2010 graduate of the Wesson Attendance Center, filed a discrimination lawsuit “on the basis of sex and on the basis of sex stereotypes” against the eastern Mississippi school district in August 2010.Sturgis, who prefers more masculine clothing, felt “uncomfortable” wearing the drape, designed to mimic a dress, in her photo.