Tennessee Guerilla Women: Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Oak Ridge, Tenn. - Not a Free Speech Zone

A new sanitized, or censored, edition of the student newspaper is being distributed today, according to Superintendent Tom Bailey.

The new approved edition will not say a word about birth control. The body art article will be seriously revised.

Remarkably, the Oak Ridge High School student newspaper (sic) will not say a word about the censorship controversy that has made international news.

All 1,800 copies of the student paper, The Oak Leaf, were seized last week when school officials objected to the content.

Student-authored articles on birth control and body art sent principal Becky Ervin and Superintendent Tom Bailey into the equivalent of old-time Victorian fainting spells.

But stamping out free speech in the student population is not the only mission of Oak Ridge school officials. The Superintendent has ordered Wanda Grooms, English teacher and the adviser for the paper, "not to speak to reporters about the controversy."

According to reporter Bob Fowler, at the Knoxville News Sentinel, the principal of Oak Ridge High, Becky Ervin "has never been available for comment."

I wonder who else has been forbidden to speak. Superintendent Tom Bailey does appear to have a thing for control.

Knox News Sentinel (Vote in the paper's online poll):

Press organizations and First Amendment experts have been united in voicing strong opposition to the administration's decision.

"I just don't understand why the fine Oak Ridge High School is damaging its reputation in this fashion,'' University of Tennessee journalism professor Dwight Teeter said.

"I thought there was going to be some sort of accommodation reached,'' he said. "This sounds like they're drawing a line in the sand.''

"This school's actions are teaching a lesson more appropriate for prewar Iraq than for the United States of America,'' said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center.

The 10-member board of directors of the East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists "strongly opposes'' the censorship, according to an open letter to Bailey sent Tuesday.

The board says Ervin pulled the two articles "because of subject matter alone, which violates the First Amendment and is contrary to the Supreme Court's ruling for a student newspaper traditionally operated as a public forum within the high school.''

The student editor [Brittany Thomas] said she thinks the issue reflects badly on the school and state.

"I see this going to court,'' she said. She said both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Student Press Law Center "are going against what happened here.''