White space. That's what Plano Senior High School students saw in a recent issue of their school newspaper when the principal censored an editorial he deemed racist and several other items dealing with sex.
Principal Doyle Dean said that the items he removed from the Feb.
Student newspaper staff members at Whittier College uncovered what may turn out to be the story of the year ... in their very own office.
A routine maintenance service call last week turned up an electronic surveillance device imbedded in the office walls of the Quaker Campus, Whittier's student newspaper.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 19 unanimously upheld the right of schools to engage in the common practice of having students grade one another's work in the classroom, which the Court ruled does not violate federal privacy statutes.
In a 9-0 ruling, the Court in Owasso Independent School District v.
WASHINGTON -- Administrators at Renton High School near Seattle who want to impose a strict prior review policy on the student newspaper say the change has nothing to do with editorials in the paper that caused "hurt feelings" last December.
While Hilari Anderson, adviser to The Talking Stick, agrees, she claims an October editorial on the school's policy on fighting that "hurt vice principal Alice Coleman's feelings" and a December cartoon drawn by student Michael Baxter portraying Renton principal Willie Fisher as uninformed increased awareness of the change.
Under the proposed revision, the current policy giving principals "the authority to monitor" student publications would be changed to give school officials the right to "review any copy prior to publication." The policy would be effective throughout the school district.
TEXAS -- The turmoil at Texas A&M University surrounding a controversial cartoon published in the campus newspaper earlier this month simultaneously died down and heated up on Monday.
NEW JERSEY -- A bill prohibiting school districts from administering surveys that ask students sensitive questions without written parental consent was signed into law on Jan.
On its face, the Middlesex Borough Board of Education's policy on independent student publications could have been penned by James Madison.
FLORIDA -- One year after a federal appeals court ruled students at Kentucky State University could distribute their yearbook despite the objections of administrators, the editor of Florida A&M University's yearbook has found herself in a situation strikingly similar to the facts of that case.
 Administrators cited the silver cover of the 2000-01 yearbook as a reason for withholding distribution. |
ARKANSAS -- The state supreme court ruled Thursday that a high school student's rap lyrics constituted a "true threat" of physical violence, upholding a juvenile court's criminal conviction of the student.
Blake Jones wrote the rap song and gave it to fellow student Allison Arnold during a class in February 2001 after Jones became upset with Arnold, the decision states.
NEW YORK -- A student at the State University of New York at Albany is considering suing the university-affiliated Auxiliary Services Corporation after being denied access to multiple meetings of its board.
In December, Tony Gray received a favorable opinion from the state's Committee on Open Government, which determined the board of the Auxiliary Services Corporation is a public agency that must comply with state laws governing open records and open meetings. The Auxiliary Services Corporation is a nonprofit company that runs the university's food service, bookstore and similar operations.
"In view of the degree of governmental control exercised by and its nexus with the University of Albany, I believe that [the board] conducts public business and performs a governmental function of a governmental entity," wrote Robert Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government, in a non-binding opinion.
Gray said board members have asked him to leave all the meetings he has tried to attend.