Tenn. School Confiscates Student Newspapers

[icymist]

By Associated Press

November 27, 2005, 3:15 PM EST


OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- Copies of a high school's student newspaper were seized by administrators because the edition contained stories about birth control and tattoos, stirring a First Amendment debate.

Administrators at Oak Ridge High School went into teachers' classrooms, desks and mailboxes to retrieve all 1,800 copies of the newspaper Tuesday, said teacher Wanda Grooms, who advises the staff, and Brittany Thomas, the student editor.

The Oak Leaf's birth control article listed success rates for different methods and said contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department. Superintendent Tom Bailey said the article needed to be edited so it would be acceptable for the entire school.

(more)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-student-newspaper-seized,0,1506781.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines


Teaching high school students to become media whores and only write propaganda papers reflecting only the views of the administration!

[Trillo]

1. Odd, I thought the First Amendment was settled for some 250 years now.nt

[newswolf56]

2. More terrifying evidence of Bush's forcible imposition of theocracy:

I know Oak Ridge, and because of its unique population -- a substantial percentage are scientists -- it is probably the most liberal city and public school system in the South and certainly in all of Tennessee: Kerry easily won Oak Ridge in 2004, and Gore carried it (despite losing Tennessee itself) in 2000. It could easily be the most liberal, most enlightened smaller city in the United States. These facts make the suppression of the Oak Ridge High School student newspaper -- its seizure obviously an expression of the Christian Fundamentalist hostility to birth control and hatred of sexuality in general -- all the more astonishing and all the more horrifying: one more proof of the extent toward which Bush and his religious-fanatic allies are turning America into a Christofascist theocracy. As Gore himself has said, American liberty has never in all of history been in such great jeopardy.