Headline censorship leads to teacher resignation
Frederick County case points out need for state press rights legislation
by Gary Clites
Originally published in the Maryland-DC Scholastic Press Association's The Adviser, Spring 1997
I met Joy-Ann Maloney at last year’s MSPA Fall Convention. A young teacher in her first year as adviser to the Governor Thomas Johnson High School (GTJHS) student newspaper, The Governor, she came to the event looking for help and guidance in how to make the publication a success. After one year working as a committed adviser in her student’s interest, the school’s PTA gave her an award saying the improvements she made in the publication were, “...one of the best things at school this year.”
But as Thomas Johnson’s newspaper staff returns to school for the fall, they will do so without Joy-Ann Maloney. Under heavy pressure from the school administration over her decision to support her students against the principal’s censorship of the final issue of last year’s newspaper, Maloney has resigned from her position at the school and left teaching for another field.
“I feel really guilty about leaving the kids and the paper because I really did enjoy it,” she told me. “But that’s it.... I felt like I was a capable person doing a really good job, and I was completely unappreciated by the school system.” Scholastic journalism in Maryland and the students of Frederick have lost a devoted and talented young teacher -- all over the tone of one headline which GTJHS Principal Joseph Heidel didn’t like.
What happened sounds downright silly, but its effect on Maloney, her students and, ultimately, the state of journalism education is chilling. Thomas Johnson’s Future Teachers of America (FTA) held a contest last school year designed to promote recycling and earn a few dollars for the organization. The class that collected the most plastic bags recycled from local supermarkets would win an ice cream party. The Governor staff wrote a story about the contest and reported, accurately by all accounts, that the group which won, teacher Richard McDonough’s fourth period philosophy class, did so using questionable means. Most of the bags they turned in were bought, unused, from local grocery stores or taken from recycling bins at the supermarkets rather than being genuinely recycled through the efforts of the students. Despite these facts, the FTA declared the class the winner of the contest and gave them their party.
No one has ever disputed the accuracy of the story. But, after the newspaper went to press, McDonough learned that the story was to be titled, “Students bag ethics in contest: Recycling drive fuels controversy.” He complained that the headline impugned his integrity and, after some thought, the principal ordered that the newspaper be suppressed and reprinted with a corrected headline. In a memo to Maloney, Heidel explained: “The headline implies that Mr. McDonough and his students were unethical in the manner in which they participated in the plastic bag recycling drive contest...” The principal felt he was within his rights to censor since the Frederick County Board of Education’s regulations allow a principal to censor school publications which are libelous.
The students refused to allow their names to be associated with a censored and reprinted newspaper, stopping the principals plan. Maloney, trained in the laws of scholastic journalism, recognized that the headline did not constitute libel and that the censorship was not legal. She quickly contacted Mark Goodman, Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center, who agreed, sending the principal a letter explaining that the publication’s opinion regarding an accurate story expressed in a headline could not be libel (Henry v. National Association of Air Traffic Specialists, 836 F. Supp. 1204, 1215 [D. Md. 1993])
The principal stood his ground, and his position was upheld by Joseph Polce, director of high schools at the time and David Markoe, assistant superintendent at the time (both have since left their positions). Students, with the help of attorney Rick Peltz of the Baltimore firm of Venable, Baetjer and Howard working pro-bono on their behalf, appealed the matter to Superintendent Dr. Jack Dale. His decision on the matter is expected sometime in September. If he fails to overturn the censorship, the students may appeal to the Board of Education then seek redress from the courts.
None of which will help Joy-Ann Maloney. Although principal Heidel went to pains to make clear that he felt Maloney had done nothing wrong in the publication of the newspaper, she was criticized for standing behind her students when they balked at the censorship: “They basically said I should have supported my principal and school system instead of telling them (the students) what their legal rights were and supporting them.” In other words, her allegiance should have been with administrators rather than her students.
As president of the Maryland Scholastic Press Association, I support Maloney and her students in their fight against inappropriate censorship. They have taken a courageous stand for which they should be honored rather than punished. But as an educator working in the trenches of public school education, I also have sympathy for the principal in this case.
Educational journalism is currently governed by the 1988 Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. That ruling gave school administrators the right to censor student publications under some circumstances. Although the court set forth specific criteria which must be met for censorship to be legal (none of which could possibly apply to the headline at GTJHS), these were broad and open to interpretation. Unfortunately, few administrators have had the time or ability to study the complexities of press law as part of their professional development. This leaves principals like Heidel trying to follow the law only to discover that they have failed to fully understand its nuances. Put simply, there is little understanding among teachers, students or administrators of just what constitutes legal censorship under Hazelwood.
The effect has been to create a playing field on which good teachers like Joy-Ann Maloney, working to guide their students in the creation of positive student publications, suddenly find the goal posts moving and the grass shifting under their feet. It is a frustrating and frightening situation for journalism advisers. Maloney stated that the pressure she felt over this issue was, “definitely a contributing factor,” in her decision to leave teaching.
Communications education in Maryland cannot afford to lose more teachers like Maloney, nor can it afford to allow student self-expression to be challenged inappropriately or administrators to be tied up for months in battles over the nuances of press law under Hazelwood. Instead, the state legislature needs to act to make the rules of student press law in Maryland clear for students, teachers and administrators alike. The Maryland legislature should follow the lead of legislatures in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas and Massachusetts by passing a “Student Free Expression Law.”
Would this mean freeing students to publish everything and anything they wanted in the public schools? Hardly. Rather, such bills set forth clearly when and how school systems may appropriately control what students publish. If, for example, a student violates journalism rules by genuinely committing libel; or writes an article which is obscene; or promotes other students to materially disrupt the operation of the school, such a law would specifically allow the school administration to stop publication. Further, most codify into law the fact that scholastic publications represent only the views of students and are not to be taken as official statements by the school system, freeing administrators from the concern that they will be held accountable for things that teenagers write.
A student free expression act is needed in Maryland to prevent the kind of confusion that led to all the trouble at Thomas Johnson. It will assure that teachers and administrators can work together on common ground for the good of their students and may prevent us from ever losing another fine teacher like Joy-Ann Maloney.
The Board of Directors of the Maryland Scholastic Press Association voted last spring to work toward the passage of such a bill in Maryland. We encourage journalism teachers, advisers and students across the state to get involved in this effort. For a start, we will be holding a special workshop on the subject for advisers at our Fall Convention on November 15. If you support us in this effort, we hope you will be there to learn more about how we can all work together to make the rules of student free expression a permanent part of Maryland law.
© Gary Clites, 1997