Pro-LGBTQ Articles Get High School Newspaper Canceled

In Nebraska, Northwest Public Schools’ 54-year-old, student-run Viking Saga newspaper, and the related journalism class, were both canceled by administrators because of pro-LGBTQ content in the publication’s June issue. Three days following the June issue’s publication, the Saga’s staff were notified that that was their last issue, ever.

The Grand Island Independent reports that, although Dan Leiser, president of the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education, indicated that the board had little to do with the cancellation, he didn’t object to the decision. Referring to the contents of the issue, he says, “Most people were upset they were written.”

Board Vice President Zach Madar cites pro-LGBTQ editorials and states that, if district taxpayers would have read the June issue, “They would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’

“I do think there have been talks of doing away with our newspaper if we were not going to be able to control the content we saw (as) inappropriate. The very last issue that came out this year, there was… a little bit of hostility among some,” Madar tells The Independent. “There were editorials that were essentially, I guess what I would say, LGBTQ.”

In one editorial, “The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill: Making students existing controversial,” staff writer and transgender student Marcus Pennell, writes, “…most LGBT students are scared to even show up to class most days. If the concern was really for the quality of education for our children, why not ban all discussion (concerning sexuality)… if we aren’t saying ‘gay,’ why can we say ‘straight?’”

Leiser asks The Independent, “If 90% of people say the (stories) shouldn’t have been written in the first place, they weren’t happy with reading it in the newspaper—I’m not talking me, I’m talking high school students—why do you think this is newsworthy?”

This hasn’t been the first time in the district’s history that pro-LGBTQ sentiment raised flags with administrators. Tensions had been growing between Saga staff writers and the school system’s administration since April, when district officials banned the use of pronouns and preferred names in bylines. Students were instructed to only use birth names.

Marcus Pennell was directly affected by the ban when his byline was changed from Marcus, his preferred name, to Meghan, his birth name, in the final edition.

“It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, ‘We don’t really want you here,’” Pennell tells The Independent. “You know, that was a big deal for me.”

Michelle Hassler, executive director of the Nebraska High School Press Association and assistant journalism professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,  explains in an interview that the act of banning pronouns is a new concept to her. Noting that institutions like the Associated Press—the American nonprofit news agency which created the popular AP grammar style that is heavily used in news writing—recognize the use of preferred names, she says, “I think we’re getting into some additional rights here.”

Historically, schools have attempted to censor student journalists, and since 1988 they’ve been easily able to do so.

The Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier determined that school administrators were not violating the First Amendment if they sponsored the student newspaper and had legitimate instructional reasons to censor its contents. In this instance, the principal at Hazelwood East High School removed stories from the school’s newspaper before publication and without notifying the students because it contained articles about teen pregnancy and the impact of divorce on their peers.

Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, tells The Independent, “The Supreme Court created a carve out of First Amendment rights, specifically applying to student journalists, which allows school administrators to censor students for any quote-unquote, ‘legitimate pedagogical reason.’”

“The decision by the administration to eliminate the student newspaper violates students’ right to free speech, unless the school can show legitimate education reason for removing the option to participate in a class… that publishes award-winning material,” says Max Kautsch, a Nebraska Press Association attorney specializing in media law in Kansas and Nebraska. “It is hard to imagine what that legitimate reason could be.”

The award-winning material Kautsch referenced was the third-place win Northwest’s student media, including Saga staff writers, earned at the 2022 Nebraska School Activities Association State Journalism Championship.

“Someone in administration needs to be really clear about the reason (the Saga was eliminated)… they are getting really close to violating some First Amendment rights,” Hassler says.

According to The Independent, Northwest Principal P.J. Smith referred the publication’s question to Jeff Edwards, Northwest’s district superintendent. Edwards refused to answer questions concerning Saga’s elimination in detail and sustained that it was, “an administrative decision.”

Harris says, “When student journalists are censored, we are teaching them that facts and truth—even when they are uncomfortable—are not acceptable.”

Photo courtesy of Viking Saga and Grand Island Independent