That's a good case study for the schoolkids about how the world does in fact work.

I'Anon I hope you encourage the parents of the students to contact an attorney, so he/she can contact the school that your first amendment rights are being violated.

This sounds disturbing; and the principal is in the wrong. If this has to do with students not being able to print an article concerning safety, get an attorney that will take the case Pro Bono.

If the students' have safety issues, they must speak up for their right. Welcome to the world of those who want to silence those who speak the truth.

Something tells me your not going to have any problem having enough funds for the newspaper.

This is precisely what happens all over the country. Submit the article to this rag and see if it gets any better reception.

so, dread, what groundbreaking piece of journalism of yours did they reject?

That principal deserves to be in jail for his actions, but of course he could wiggle out in the court room, but he definitely should be fired. His actions will have brought far more bad publicity to the school than the danger the students wanted to write about. But Nooooo, we'll probably hear that this great educator gets some high esteemed honor by his professional community. Yuck!!

Attn teenage ding dongs: It is possible to spread information beyond the walls of your high school, and with zero prior restraint from your principal! The elders refer to it as "social media."

Name the principal or school if you want this to mean anything. You're anonymous. It doesn't mean they have to be.

Also, your first amendment rights aren't really being messed with. If it is the school's paper, then the school has ability to determine what's in it. The principal likely does get the final say. This happens in private publishing as well.

The school paper probably wasn't the best place anywhere if the safety hazards are serious - try the Mercury, the O, or a local community paper.

Yes, welcome to the real world, where people in power don't want negative information distributed, and will use their power to squash said info. You really thought principle X would just let you publish all his failings? That being said, there are other ways to get your article published, local papers serve many neighborhoods, the Oregonian would live to feed such a story to their PPS hating clientele, you get the point, take it to the free press. Social media is another route, and get the parents informed. You haven't seen a shit storm like the ones parents stir up over school issues. Also, you need to learn what the first amendment protects you against. Not clear there is a constitutional infringement here, you need a lawyer to tell you that, but pretty sure this isn't a constitutional infringement of rights.

ummm... Commenty Colin just so you know many schools now have policies that suspend or expel kids for tweets and facebooks posts, so no, going to social media may not help.

The PSU Daily Vanguard used to delete my comments on relevant articles, about the former President getting kick backs from the student rec center cost over runs and required, Higher One, debit card account. Kapi'olani Community College just killed it's student paper, The Kapio' News, to replace it with a magazine, same as above, after the editor of the paper interviewed the chancellor of University of Hawaii about the boondoggle of the UH presidents' public supported mansion on College Hill. That story never made it to press.

Social media is no substitute for the loss of free network television broadcast news, that has been decimated. What ever happened to Forest Sawyer, for instance?

Big corporate special interests got pissed that their political cronies were asked tough embarrassing questions by popular news reporters, so they bought the three big television networks, along with all the radio stations and small news papers around the country. Now, there's nothing but fluff. If it weren't for the Russian Times, I never would have known about the US war ship entering the Black Sea off the coast of Ukraine. Putin doesn't even have to resort to propaganda; all he has to do is report the news that the US Government doesn't want US to hear. The Internet was not invented by Al Gore. It was a secret project of the DoD. Why do you suppose they released it to the public? Social media is a tool for the NSA. If anybody posts anything of significance that the NSA doesn't like, then it gets deleted, or buried by a preponderance of NSA trolls.

I had to go digging for the court case that led to a friend of mine resigning as editor of our h.s. paper in 1988, when the principal upon being asked said that yes he would take advantage of the precedent that he could censor the student newspaper. So sadly students lost freedom of press rights before dirt and when we were chipping the news into stone tablets. I second go to all the local small presses with your story, maybe one's sufficiently independent of corporate owners to print it, if the threat to student health is genuine, not something like "chemtrails/letting homos use our water fountains" http://www.shmoop.com/free-speech/hazelwoo…

Schools have the right to infringe upon and even completely disregard the basic Constitutional rights of their students.

The right of schools to violate students' rights to be secure in their person and effects, speak and write freely, assemble peaceably and associate freely has been repeatedly upheld by the courts.

Never mind that we apparently expect our kids to be subjected to 12 years of such abuse and then somehow magically morph into citizens with full knowledge and appreciation of their rights and responsibilities as members of a free society upon graduation.

What do you expect from a system modeled on the Prussian system of compulsory indoctrination of youth into "ideal" (i.e. compliant) subjects and workers?

Bottom line, our K-12 educational system is there to perpetuate the class structure, warehouse kids and keep them out of the workforce/allow their parents to be in the workforce, stamp out as much creative, entrepreneurial zeal and individuality as possible and continually regurgitate compliant citizens, labor and consumers for the ruling class.

Just saying.

I dunno-- attacks on the head of the school based out of - perhaps - baseless allegations ??
What if the guy is innocent and was the victim of hearsay?
He is then ruined by an article published by kids...

He may be an ass... guilty... whatever...
I just don't think a school paper is the proper forum for this.
That is what our Courts are for.
They can jump into muckraking in college.

I just re-read this... and I suggest you all do it too.
Proclaiming to publish an article 'for the safety of the faculty and students'...

This extremely vaugue attack strikes me more and more as bullshit.