Tag: Fall 2005

High school yearbook pages composed of senior superlatives and senior messages might be popular among students but they can be more trouble than they are worth for publication staffs.

\nLisa Rodgers, the editor of the 2005 yearbook at Michigan's Cody High School, discovered this the hard way after a coded message on a senior ''confessions'' page led to the censorship of the book and the dismissal of the publication's adviser in June.

\nThe yearbook drew the attention of Principal Ronnie Phillips and other staff members because of a picture of a gay couple at homecoming and a coded message on a senior ''confessions'' page that staff members perceived as an accusation that certain teachers had engaged in sexual behavior with students.

Former staff members of the Tattler, Ithaca High School's student newspaper, filed a lawsuit against the Ithaca City School District in June claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated and guidelines restricting the paper are unconstitutional.

Student journalists, in the face of censorship, typically choose one or a combination of these paths, though a road less traveled exists: moving the paper underground.

Johnson, who had been the paper's adviser for more than 15 years, was told in May 2004 that he was being dismissed, although he would continue to work as a professor in the school of journalism. He said he felt the staff was ''shell shocked'' after learning of his dismissal.