Tag: Fall 1999

\nLOUISIANA - A police incident report on public relations\nstationery. A missing affidavit.

\nOREGON - In a ruling that could have broad implications for\nstudents who sue their schools, an appeals court denied a school\ndistrict's motion to dismiss the appeal of a high school student\nwho graduated while his lawsuit against the district was pending.

The Bend-La Pine School District argued that Chris Pangle's\nsuit against the district should be dismissed because he had graduated\nand there was no longer an ongoing conflict between the parties.

But Jonathan Hoffman, Pangle's attorney, maintained that because\nPangle was seeking retrospective relief-he was suing the school\ndistrict for past acts it had committed against him-the case was\nstill relevant.

The Oregon Court of Appeals sided with Pangle.

\nMICHIGAN - For reporters at Eastern Michigan University's\nEastern Echo, the state supreme court's June decision to\nclose a public university's presidential search proceedings will\nhave an immediate impact.

Now EMU's candidates for university president too will remain\na mystery until the Board of Regents' choice is set in stone.\nAnd then it will be too late to voice any objections.

"The general public is going to know nothing about this\nuntil [he or she] is chosen," said Emily Hamlin, editor in\nchief of the Echo. She added that the board of regents\nhad planned to hold an open presidential search before the June\n15 court ruling.

Since the court decided in Federated Publications v.

MICHIGAN -- It has been a game of tug-of-war between a student photographer at Michigan State University and a Michigan prosecutor trying to gain access to photographs taken by the student journalist during March riots on the Michigan State campus.

A Michigan circuit court in May overturned a lower court's decision that upheld a subpoena that would have forced Michigan State's student newspaper, The State News, and 10 other commercial media organizations to hand over all of their photos of the riot scene to Ingham County prosecuting attorney Stuart Dunnings.

\nWASHINGTON, D.C. - Counselors will not necessarily have to\nreport rape and other sexual assaults as part of annual campus\ncrime statistics, and police may leave out details in their logs\nto protect victim confidentiality.

After months of debate and compromise, those were the big conclusions\nagreed upon by representatives of various higher education constituency\ngroups working with the Department of Education.

They have met with DOE officials for several months, attempting\nto compromise on what should be considered mandatory in a university's\nannual crime statistics and daily police logs that federal law\nnow requires be made public.

Two main issues under debate were whether campus counselors\nshould report sexual assaults as crime statistics, and if campus\npolice will be allowed to leave out information in the police\nlogs in order to protect victim condfidentiality.

"Basically, schools cannot avoid reporting the crime althogether,\nbut most only leave out the minimum amount of information necessary\nto protect the victim's identity, such as a dorm room number,"\nthe Society of Professional Journalists' Carolyn Carlson said\nin an e-mail.

Counselors will be permitted to release statistics of students\nwho report rapes or sexual assault for inclusion in the campus'\nannual statistics, although they will not be required to do so.\nBut that is only if the school has a procedure for anonymous reports,\nwhich they are not required to have.

CALIFORNIA - Despite a 23-year-old law protecting student\nexpression, censorship in the golden state has not become a thing\nof the past.

At Maricopa High School, yearbooks featuring artwork created\nby the yearbook adviser, who is also an art teacher at the school,\nwere censored after the school board deemed one of the works offensive.

The work was a picture drawn by adviser Deborah Leavitt at\nthe beginning of the Persian Gulf War.

\nNEW YORK - The board of trustees sat at the head of a room\ndesigned for about 50 people.

\nWISCONSIN - If it were a sports event, the cheering sections\nwould look about as lopsided as those at the women's World Cup\nsoccer final between the U.S.

\nSupporters of the high school student press did not have much\nto cheer about this spring as state legislative sessions drew\nto a close.

Of the four bills designed to protect the student press that\nwere introduced, none became law.

Bills died this year in Connecticut, Missouri and Illinois,\nand legislation introduced in Nebraska is being held over until\nnext year.

In Connecticut, legislation intended "to prevent\nchallenges to or public criticism of student journalists who publish\npolitical or controversial material" died after supporters\nrejected a watered-down version of the bill.