After resigning from her position, Caitlyn VanOrden, former managing editor of East Coweta High's newspaper, formed a Facebook site and is organizing a First Amendment Rally.
All this in response to an incident regarding "Another Modest Proposal." Another "Modest Proposal" you ask? Didn't we get enough of Jonathon Swift's crude and cruel ideals the first time around? Not exactly...
Senior Justin Jones burlesqued Swift's 18th-century essay "A Modest
Proposal" in the September issue of Smoke Signals, East Coweta High's student
newspaper....
Titling his piece "Another modest proposal," Justin suggested that the euthanasia of low-IQ students could alleviate the world's woes. His essay and a critique of an East Coweta Princess beauty pageant by the paper's managing editor Caitlyn VanOrden spurred a classic example of administrative overkill.
(Here it comes...)
Principal Derek Pitts impounded 500 undistributed copies of Smoke Signals and
told the staff that he wanted more positive and uplifting stories.
According to the article by Maureen Downey, on the editorial board for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, this is an obstruction of First Amendment rights due to the Principal's lack of reason and educational use in his actions.
A "positive" school newspaper devoted to winning football scores is not only boring, but it doesn't teach teenage journalists critical thinking skills. It doesn't take courage to report that the high school band bought new uniforms. It does to challenge the status quo, and that's what good school newspapers should do.
Does this really deserve a 2.0 rally though? I realize that it looks like a huge challenge to First Amendment rights for high school students, but just how appropriate was a story like this for a high school paper?
The editor should have edited for taste, recognizing the potential backlash a story such as this would create.
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