by Jonathan Lavigne
Editor-in-Chief

The Washington State House of Representatives has just passed a bill that will ensure student media is free from censorship and admistrative interference.

The Bill is currently being reviewed by the senate.

The House Bill (HB 1307) will serve a double function: to ensure free speech rights for student press; and to safeguard faculty and administration officials from any kind of accountability related to views expressed by the student media. After all, freedom of speech is a constitutional right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The views of one student, City Collegian Opinion Editor Lee Myers, sparked controversy in late January at Seattle Central Community College. The opinion article in question titled “Crime and Race: The American Black Crime Epidemic” was about how the author, sees a parallel between the African American population and crime rates.

The backlash from the article threatened not only the funding of the student newspaper, but also the job of the advisor for allowing those words to see print. One faculty member has described the paper as “white supremacist,” Myers says.

Response to the article was nearly instantaneous. On Jan. 31, several students gathered in the school atrium to protest his article. The City Collegian’s response to the controversy was to form an editorial review committee which will oversee the content of all articles before they go to print.

“We need different opinions, and we aren’t getting that,” Myers said. “Right now, if we want to discuss something controversial, it will be a problem.”

Myers will be stepping down from his position at the end of the quarter and will very possibly be looking for a new school.

“If I have no voice, then what’s the point?” he said.

In 2005, Shorewood High’s annual literary publication, Imprints, saw its original run pulped and reprinted when school and district officials considered one of the published poems offensive.

Zoya Raskina, 17, had written a short, 13-line poem about her first sexual experience. District administrators asked the faculty advisor, Steve Kelly to step down as magazine editor. Officials feel that they are in the right to act in such a way because the magazine, yearbook, and newspaper are all paid for with school funds. Bill 1307 will allow the students to write what they want, and advisors to be free from responsibility.

The Bill, originally sponsored by Representative Dave Upthegrove (D), made it out of the House of Representatives on March 12, and is now on the floor of the senate awaiting approval of the judiciary committee.