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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,897 posts)
Sat Dec 1, 2018, 04:54 PM Dec 2018

HS Newspaper Suspended For Publishing Investigation Into Football Players' Transfers

IDoTheRICOHat Retweeted

A high school newspaper in a football-obsessed Arkansas town wrote an investigation about the transfer of five players to a rival school.

In response, the school district broke state law and suspended the paper!

(and ignored my requests for comment)



A High School Newspaper Was Suspended For Publishing An Investigation Into Football Players’ Transfers

“They are like, ‘Well, you raised an uproar, we’re going to try and silence you,’” said Halle Roberts, 17, the editor-in-chief of the Har-Ber Herald in Arkansas.

Amber Jamieson
BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on December 1, 2018, at 11:54 a.m. ET
....

Friday nights mean football in Springdale, a small city in the northwest of the state. So when five varsity players transferred from Har-Ber High School to their archrivals at Springdale High School in the middle of the school year in late 2017 — both schools are under the Springdale Public Schools district — student journalists at the Herald decided to investigate.

The Herald published its monthslong investigation — which questions the legitimacy of the school district’s approval of the transfers — on Oct. 30. ... “Once it dropped, everyone was talking about it,” said Roberts. “Parents were mad, students were mad. It just caused a chain of events.” ... Those events include the Springdale Public Schools district officials demanding the story be removed from the school website — despite Arkansas state law protecting the rights of student publications. Several school and district officials didn’t return requests for comment.

On Tuesday, Paul Griep, the principal of Har-Ber high school, announced the newspaper was suspended from publishing while the school district writes new protocols for student publications. Roberts argues that the school district is violating her and her classmates’ free speech. ... “They are trying to change the policy, which takes away our First Amendment right,” she said.
....

Three days after the story was published, the deputy superintendent for Springdale Public Schools asked Sprague to take the story down. She complied. ... Sprague and the journalism staff tried to get the district to allow it to be republished. ... But on Monday, Springdale Superintendent Jim Rollins wrote in a letter to Sprague that the story would not be republished because it was “intentionally negative, demeaning, derogatory, hurtful and potentially harmful to the students addressed in those articles.” ... Rollins also called it “extremely divisive and disruptive” to the school district.
....
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HS Newspaper Suspended For Publishing Investigation Into Football Players' Transfers (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Dec 2018 OP
I didn't have to read the article to know why but I did. We had the same thing go on in my town brewens Dec 2018 #1
And last week, Springdale let the Sons of the Confederacy have floats in sinkingfeeling Dec 2018 #2
Student Press Law Center: We've published the story that was censored mahatmakanejeeves Dec 2018 #3

brewens

(13,399 posts)
1. I didn't have to read the article to know why but I did. We had the same thing go on in my town
Sat Dec 1, 2018, 07:34 PM
Dec 2018

with our American Legion baseball team. They were always favorites to win their district title and possible world series contenders. I was in junior high and a couple buddies older brothers were on the team. This kid from the southern part of the state shows up for tryouts and says he's transferring to go to school here and is allowed to play.

It turns out he's awesome and has a cannon arm! A lot of people were pissed and he and his parents were not treated well. He ended up not going to school here or playing for them the next year as planned. I know the coaches son back then and he was a legendary coach and athletic director at our high school. I should ask him what he thought or remembers about the whole thing. I imagine his dad had that forced on him somehow. I can't see him knowingly bringing in a ringer like that.

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