Would anyone think twice if this newspaper published an LGBT-friendly editorial on this page? Would hundreds of people raise their pitchforks and torches, alert the mainstream media and call for an immediate apology?
How about if we published an anti-LGBT article?
That’s the situation the student newspaper at Shawano Community High School is facing after running pro and con pieces about gay adoption. Brandon Wegner, a 15-year-old sophomore, wrote an opinion column arguing gay adoption was immoral and unbiblical.
The piece was published next to another arguing that one’s sexual orientation has no bearing on his or her parenting ability.
“In a Christian society allowing homosexual couples to adopt is an abomination,” Wegner wrote.
The Shawano School District received an almost immediate outcry from other students and their parents, including from a 13-year-old in the district named Tanner, whose father is gay.
“I cannot believe that my school newspaper would post such a story, saying gay people can’t raise kids, it just makes me laugh,” Tanner wrote on the comments section of a news website. “There is nothing wrong with me, even though one of my parents is gay, I am not emotionally disturbed, nor do I underachieve. My parents teach me real values, to love everyone as they are.”
The school eliminated both columns from all remaining copies of the paper and issued an apology. Todd Carlson, the high school’s superintendent, allegedly pulled Wegner, the writer of the column, out of class and told him that his column violated the school’s bullying policy. Wegner claims the superintendent called him several demeaning names during the conversation.
In addition, Wegner was barred from writing any future articles for the newspaper.
Now Wegner and his family are threatening litigation against the school district for violating his First Amendment rights. They want an apology, and for the school district to let all students know about their rights under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.
Technically, Wegner might be right that the school has violated his rights. The First Amendment protects almost all speech, even ignorant speech. Censoring it to please a vocal minority, or majority as the case may be, is wrong.
Just because you can say or print something, however, does not mean you should. News organizations have a responsibility to their readers. Destroying a reader’s trust damages a newspaper’s credibility, and readership. In addition, major newspapers would be apt to not publish a column like Wegner’s because of the financial ramifications it would have on them. Controversy decreases advertising revenue in most cases. Most high school newspapers are paid for by the district and do not have to worry about advertising.
There is, however, a larger issue in this situation.
Does it seem appropriate for a school district to allow high school students to publish opinion pieces about such controversial topics? Most teenagers do not have a strong understanding of issues that probably have not affected them yet in life. The publication is included in the town’s newspaper, the Shawano Leader. Allowing students to enter their often-uninformed opinions into a very public dialogue is not only a bad idea, it could be dangerous.
In the situation of the Shawano school newspaper, everyone is at fault.
Email: editorials@crowsneststpete.com
