Posted on 07/20/2003 12:31:45 PM PDT by freepatriot32
INDIANA — A high school senior was suspended and prohibited from participating in his graduation ceremony for hiding a vulgar word in a student newspaper article.
Lawrence Central High School administrators handed down the punishment to Drew LaMar after he used the first letter of every paragraph in his May 20 column in the Cub Reporter to spell out a message directed at the newspaper adviser, Elizabeth Granger. School officials said the message, "F**k Granger," was not protected speech.
According to Dennis LaMar, Drew's father, school administrators said they did not notice the message until they overheard a conversation between students. He said that the suspension was much more severe than punishments that had been imposed by the school in the past for, what he labeled as, senior pranks.
"They turned a deaf ear to alternative and more appropriate punishments. This punishment had more of an effect on his family and other people who did nothing," LaMar said."The principal considered it a threat against the teacher."
LaMar said that in the past, Lawrence Central students had broken into the school as a prank, which constituted a criminal act, but the students still did not receive a punishment as strict as Drew's. Assistant Principal Mary Ann Burden denied that such a prank had ever occurred.
Burden said that the punishment was decided upon by the LaMars and the school administration. She said she could not compare the severity of this punishment with other punishments because the school had never dealt with a similar situation.
"I've been to federal court and the use of the 'f-word' is not protected," Burden said.
Under the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, high school administrators can censor many school-sponsored student publications simply by showing they have a legitimate educational reason for doing so.
And in the 1986 Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, the Supreme Court upheld a student's suspension for giving a speech in a school-sponsored assembly that contained what administrators found to be lewd and indecent language.
Media experts disagree on whether LaMar should be punished by the school
"This is the type of prank that really hurts the serious high school press advocates from being able to get a reversal down the road for Hazelwood," said Stephen Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association. "I see this as an appropriate reaction to an irresponsible action by a staff member."
Key said that he did not view Drew's punishment as a First Amendment issue because the "student was not being censored for the type of article or the content but ... for an admitted prank."
Louis Ingelhart, professor emeritus of journalism at Indiana's Ball State University, said the hidden message most likely would not constitute an illegal obscenity because it was broken up into the first letters of each paragraph.
"Publishing obscenity is illegal. However, determining whether it is obscene is not something for a school administrator to determine," said Ingelhart, a former member of the SPLC board. "You have to go to court to get that determination."
-- April Wine
I remember seeing that video on MTV when I was a young teenager shortly after MTV first went on the air.
I remember the video had the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. I believe she was on a diving board or in a swimming pool.
I remember hoping to see the video again but I never did. I saw it only once.
It was not til I was older that I figured out why this video enjoyed such a *short* run on MTV.
One Up For The Asterisks
[William F. Buckley, Jr. talks about Free Republic, and the "F-word"]
Posted by Fledermaus
On 09/02/2003 9:28 PM PDT with 22 comments
National Review Online ^ | Sept. 2, 2003 | William F. Buckley, Jr.
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