The Viking Saga, a Nebraska high school’s award-winning student newspaper, was shut down by their school after publishing an LGBTQ+ pride issue.
Newspapers are responsible for delivering information to the public, requiring them to evaluate governing bodies critically and impartially. This desired impartiality creates a need for separation between newspapers and their istrative organizations, like governments or schools.
Such separation is less easily granted to high school newspapers because they’re run by minors. Schools and governments may want to monitor high school newspapers closely to preserve set social ideological beliefs.
American courts have established public school s can regulate or even censor students’ free speech if they have “legitimate” educational reasons to do so. Shutting down the Viking Saga exemplifies censorship more than it does concern for its students or their education.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nebraska denounced the decision to shutter the newspaper, accusing the high school of censoring student journalism to obstruct acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Just before the release of the issue, the School Board announced it would be disallowing students from using names or pronouns other than those assigned to them at birth. This policy, followed by the striking down of a newspaper after its pride issue, are significantly suggestive of entrenched homophobia and transphobia by the school’s istrative bodies.
Lawmakers and school boards justify prohibiting young children from learning about LGBTQ+ history or identities by claiming the possibility of confusing them, or somehow manipulating them out of their heterosexuality and cisgender-ness, but this argument isn’t defensible when applied to students in high school.
Teenagers are old enough to understand non-heterosexual relationships and gender identities not conforming to the cisgender binary. There’s no risk of confusing them, nor of encouraging them to question their sexuality or gender if they’re not already doing so.
Schools denying the existence of the queer community is by no means a display of neutrality. Silence implies disapproval and causes LGBTQ+ students to feel invalidated and excluded.
Sexuality is a part of life students will inevitably encounter outside the classroom—the education for which cannot be solely entrusted to parents. For the well-being of students, schools have a responsibility to educate teenagers about such an essential, far-reaching topic, and to reflect the experiences of different sexual orientations when doing so.
Granting a student’s request to go by a different name or pronouns will cause no harm. Denying that request forces students into the closet, with no regard for their safety.
Barring queer youth from finding acceptance and community has dire consequences. LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
Incidents like this high school’s censoring of queerness are blatantly oppressive and unacceptable. LGBTQ+ visibility validates the experiences and existence of queer individuals.
Until for the LGBTQ+ community is incorporated into education, it is paramount that we protect such student-led inclusivity. This is not only an issue of free speech, but of child endangerment.
—Journal Editorial Board
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