New law to protect Oregon high school and college journalists from censorship
The nation’s first law to help protect Oregon high school and college journalists from censorship by school administrations was signed into law recently by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The Oregon law makes student journalists responsible for determining the content of school-sponsored media and gives them the right to sue schools if they feel free-press rights have been violated. It is the country’s first law in more than a decade to protect high school journalists, and the first ever to cover both high school and college journalists under one statute, says Warren Watson, director of J-Ideas, a First Amendment institute at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. Six other states¯Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, and Massachusetts¯have laws that protect high school journalists from censorship, but all were passed before 1996. State Rep. Larry Galizio, who also teaches college journalism, introduced the bill. He read about a similar attempt being made in Washington state and modeled Oregon’s bill on that effort. The Washington bill died in April. Journalism and education associations across Oregon coordinated support for the bill, says Frank Ragulsky, executive director of the Northwest Scholastic Press association and student media director at Oregon State University, who attributes the bill’s success to "a grassroots effort by a lot of the constituents in Oregon." Opponents of the bill, such as the Oregon School Boards Association, said that students aren’t capable of responsibly editing a newspaper, and even professional journalists are subject to the editorial control of publishers and owners. Free-speech advocates say the Oregon bill’s passage was a victory. "At a time when so much student expression is being diminished, it is heartening to know that Oregon, consistent with its rich free-speech tradition, is at least doing something to stem the tide of censorship of student expression," says Ronald Collins, a scholar for the Nashville-based First Amendment Center.
USA Today
By Tracy Loew
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: According to David Williams, Legislative & Public Affairs Specialist for the Oregon School Boards Association, his organization had opposed an earlier version of the legislation but dropped its opposition after the measure was amended to address most of its concerns. The Washington legislation would have given any high school student and any parent of any high school student legal standing to sue a school in court over allegations of censorship.]