Tag: Winter 2005-06

CALIFORNIA -- Last spring three students who confessed to stealing student newspapers at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles were punished by an internal campus disciplinary process.

The Courage in Student Journalism Awards are presented each year to student journalists and to a school administrator or media adviser who have demonstrated exceptional determination and support for student press freedom, despite resistance or difficult circumstances.

Michael Vadnie, adviser to the University Chronicle, the student newspaper at St. Cloud State University, said the newspaper would remain "aggressive" in its reporting under his watch.

Urban students are more likely to favor greater means of expression ' such as airing an unpopular opinion or reciting profanity-laced lyrics ' while suburban students are more likely to believe the government should have the right to censor the press.

Settlement ends 14-year dispute between man and local newspaper

ILLINOIS -- A man wrongly identified in a suburban Chicago newspaper after editors used his high school yearbook photo to accompany a story on a drug bust settled his defamation lawsuit against the paper in September.

Many student newspaper staffs have faced situations like this in attempting to publish stories on homosexuality. But there seems to be just as many success stories where supportive advisers and administrators have said this is an issue that students need to be able to cover.

The study, put out by the First Amendment Center in September, looks at the balance between school safety and protecting students' First Amendment rights.

In September, the Caldwell-West Caldwell School Board in Newark, N.J., agreed to allow the publication of a previously censored article in The Caldron, James Caldwell High School's student newspaper. But the victory may prove temporary, as board members are considering stricter policies that could allow for greater censorship in the future.

California is one of six states with a statute protecting student free expression rights. The laws are often referred to as anti- Hazelwood statutes because many were a specific response to the Supreme Court's 1988 decision limiting students' rights under the First Amendment.