Administrators at a Nebraska school closed down the award-winning student newspaper just days after an edition that included articles and editorials on LGBTQ+ issues.
The action prompted press freedom advocates to decry an act of censorship.
The staff of Northwest public schools’ 54-year-old Saga newspaper was informed on 19 May of the paper’s elimination, the Grand Island Independent reported.
Three days earlier, the newspaper had printed its June edition, which included an article titled Pride and prejudice: LGBTQIA+ on the origins of pride month and the history of homophobia.
It also included an editorial opposing a Florida law that bans some lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity and dubbed by critics as the Don’t Say Gay law.
Officials overseeing the district, which is based in Grand Island, have not said when or why the decision was made to eliminate the student paper. But an email from a school employee to the Independent cancelling the student paper’s printing services on 22 May said it was “because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue’s editorial content”.
The paper’s demise also came a month after its staff was reprimanded for publishing students’ preferred pronouns and names. District officials told students they could only use names assigned at birth in future.
Emma Smith, Saga’s assistant editor in 2022, said the student paper was informed that the ban on preferred names was made by the school board.
That decision directly affected Saga staff writer Marcus Pennell, a transgender student, who saw his byline changed in the June issue, against his wishes, to his female birth name.
“It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, ‘We don’t really want you here,’” Pennell said. “You know, that was a big deal for me.”
Northwest principal PJ Smith referred the Independent’s questions to district superintendent Jeff Edwards, who declined to answer questions other than to say it was “an administrative decision”.
Some school board members have made no secret of their objection to the Saga’s LGBTQ content, including board president Dan Leiser, who said “most people were upset” with it.
Board vice president Zach Mader directly cited the pro-LGBTQ+ editorials, adding that if district taxpayers had read the last issue of the Saga, “they would have been like, ‘Holy cow. What is going on at our school?’”
“It sounds like a ham-fisted attempt to censor students and discriminate based on disagreement with perspectives and articles that were featured in the student newspaper,” said Sara Rips, an attorney for the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nebraska Press Association attorney Max Kautsch, who specializes in media law, noted that press freedom is protected in the US constitution.
