A happy ending for students at Stow High School who have resumed publication of their student newspaper after administrators attempted to censor articles in it.

Students at Stow-Munroe Falls High School have resumed publication of their school newspaper.

The paper had been on hold since a fight early this school year over what students claimed was censorship.

The students resumed publication earlier this month after discussions between the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and school administrators.

Students were protesting the principal’s decision to ban a photo of a student who killed himself.

The yearbook photo had been submitted by the late student’s parents.

Principal Susan Schur said last year that she feared the photo could trigger destructive behavior.

Mike Brickner, spokesman for the ACLU of Ohio, said Tuesday that an agreement allows for review of content and an appeals process to resolve disputes.

The ACLU joined with Ohio Right to Life calling on Speaker Budish to not consider political beliefs or affiliation when deciding whether one should receive an honor on the Ohio House floor. He reconsidered his earlier decision, but also pledged to re-examine the policy.

Elisabeth Trisler, come on down.

The Shelby County teenager who won an oratory contest sponsored by the National Right to Life will be honored for her achievement on the Ohio House floor after all.

House Speaker Armond Budish’s decision to keep the teen from receiving a resolution in the House chamber on Feb. 3 honoring her award had brought criticism from Ohio Right to Life officials, House Republicans and even the Ohio ACLU. Trisler had been scheduled to receive a resolution from Rep. John Adams, a Sidney Republican, before the House floor session began that day.

But Budish, a Beachwood Democrat, has rethought his decision and now hopes that Trisler can come to the House floor to pick up her resolution. Trisler won the National Right to Life Oratory Contest held in Charlotte last June.

ACLU of Ohio Communications Director Mike Brickner clarifies a recent headline from the Dispatch that mischaracterized a recent ruling by the Ohio Surpeme Court on a case involving an internet censorship law.

I was disappointed when I read the headline of last Thursday’s Dispatch article “State high court upholds Net law to protect kids.” The Ohio Supreme Court never was asked to rule on the constitutionality of the law, so it is misleading to say that it upheld it.

In reality, the case Booksellers vs. Strickland has been argued in the federal courts since 2002, not in state court. The plaintiffs contend that an Internet censorship law passed in the hopes of protecting children from harmful material may infringe on others’ free-speech rights because it is overly broad and vague. In fact, the state law mirrors federal laws that have been previously declared unconstitutional.

A federal-court judge issued an injunction preventing the Ohio law from going into effect, and the case is now before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After both sides made their arguments, the 6th Circuit decided it would like the Ohio Supreme Court to clarify the scope and breadth of the state law.

Now that the state Supreme Court has clarified its interpretation of the law, the federal circuit court can rule on its constitutionality. Despite what the headline implies, the case is yet to be decided and the law has not gone into effect.

MIKE BRICKNER
Communications director
American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio
Cleveland

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last week clarifying questions about an internet censorship law that is being challenged in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The federal court may now opt to rule on whether the censorship law is constitutional or not.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday, Jan. 27, ruled that a state law designed to protect children from pornography and predators on the Internet applies only to material sent via person-to-person communications, such as instant messages, e-mails and private chat rooms.

The court said in a 7-0 decision that the law does not apply to material posted on generally accessible Web sites and public chat rooms when the person distributing the obscene material can’t prevent a juvenile from seeing it.

The court did not address the constitutionality of the law — that question is pending in federal appeals court.

Instead, the Ohio Supreme Court ruling gives the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati direction on which types of electronic communication are subject to prosecution under the state law.

A great letter to the editor written by a local resident about a student’s right to not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I knew if I waited long enough someone would write a letter denigrating the young girl who refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance at her school. The writer said “American, love it or leave it” as if that were the only answer to the situation.

I for one am glad the ACLU stepped in and stopped the school officials from abusing this young woman’s civil rights. People seem to forget that we have a document called the Constitution that contains a thing called the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech this girl demonstrated by not participating in something in which she did not believe. Whether or not the writer of the letter was offended by her actions is irrelevant. The Constitution gave her the right to do what she did.

Maybe what confused the writer was the word freedom. Let me explain. In order to live in a truly free society we must all defend the rights of even one individual to exercise his or her right to do something we totally disagree with, within the limits of the law. If we can do that, then our country is truly a free society. But if we can’t defend someone’s right to have freedom of expression regardless of how much we disagree, then freedom doesn’t exist in our country at all.

“America, love it or leave it?” Maybe we should look at it a different way. Perhaps “America, love it and make it better” would be a better catch phrase.

TOM HALL

Lisbon

Unfortunately, officials at Stow-Munroe Falls High School have refused to back down on their censorship of the student paper.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said lawyers for the Stow-Munroe Falls High School refuse to back down on their right to control the newspaper, which has not been published since September in protest by students.

The ACLU sent a letter threatening to sue the district if officials continue to demand pre-publication review of the newspaper, The Stohion.

The ACLU contends that officials violated the First Amendment rights of staffers at The Stohion by spiking a memorial article and photo about a classmate who committed suicide, and by demanding full editorial control over future editions.

The law firm of Ulmer and Berne sent a letter to the ACLU stating that the school has the right to censor the newspaper.

“We disagree, of course,” said ACLU staff counsel Carrie Davis. “We will now consider our next move and whether that will be court action.”

More information about the ACLU’s recent stand to support a high school student who refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance and was punished by school officials.

Hubbard High School senior Roxanne Westover said although she was afraid school officials might expel her for refusing to recite the the Pledge of Allegiance, she never considered going back on her decision to remain seated.

Westover, 17, was reprimanded by the school for refusing to stand each morning during the reciting of the pledge. She said at least five times over a two-week period in late October and early November she was written up and and sent to the principal’s office because she refused to stand and say the pledge during the daily recitation.

An atheist, Westover said she chose not to stand during the pledge because it goes against her beliefs. She said she takes issue with the phrases “under God” because of her beliefs and with “for liberty and justice for all” because she believes there are many Americans who don’t have the same rights as others.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union has taken up her cause. Earlier this week the The ACLU sent a letter requesting the school to stop requiring students to say the pledge.

Carrie Davis, an attorney with the ACLU said Westover had contacted the organization and said she had been refusing to say the pledge with her class. Davis said she was informed this had happened several times, and the teacher would write the student up and send her to the principal’s office, where she was lectured by an assistant principal.

The ACLU recently stepped forward to help a young woman who was punished by her school for refusing to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio sent Hubbard school officials a letter Tuesday requiring the district to cease punishing students who refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

A female student at Hubbard High School was reprimanded for her refusal to recite or stand during the pledge.

Some students nationwide are refusing to recite the pledge because of personal beliefs.

The ACLU steps in to defend the rights of student journalists at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, near Akron.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is threatening legal action if Stow-Munroe Falls High School officials don’t stop what it calls censorship of the student newspaper.

The ACLU contends that officials violated the First Amendment rights of staffers at The Stohion by spiking a memorial article about a classmate who committed suicide and by demanding full editorial control over future editions.

A letter from the ACLU gives the district until Tuesday to respond.

Repeated calls to the district superintendent were not returned. The principal of the high school declined to comment.

Lyndsey Sager, editor-in-chief of the newspaper, said last week that school officials were particularly concerned that running a photo of the student could result in other suicides.

“We’d run pictures and stories of suicide victims before,” said Lyndsey, a 17-year-old senior from Munroe Falls. “We wanted to do it out of respect.”

The editor said the staff chose not to publish the September edition, the first of the school year, and have not published since.

Disturbing news from Stow, where officials are censoring the high school’s newspaper from reporting on the recent suicide of a classmate.

The principal of Stow-Munroe Falls High School is censoring the student newspaper to prevent the publication of an obituary and photograph of a recent student suicide victim, going against the school’s traditional practice.

It has been the school’s policy for decades to run an obituary or article and photograph of a student or faculty member who passes away. In addition to both elements, Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Sager said the suicide victim’s mother also wrote a letter to be published in the paper thanking her son’s friends, and assuring students that if they needed anything, the family would be there.

Originally Principal Susan Schure was OK with all three elements being included in The Stowhion. Then a few days before they were to go to press, Schure insisted the obituary and photograph be removed from the paper.

Schure did not wish to be quoted for the press. She felt while students may still be vulnerable, publishing the parents’ letter was an effective way to show support for the student and his family.

This week, the ACLU joined several other groups arguing that laws meant to curtail child pornography may unconstitutionally limit adults access to protected information on the Internet.

The Ohio Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a case that pits defenders of online child protection against advocates of free speech.

It is one of the longest running cases in the country that grapples with how states protect minors from pornography and predators on the Internet without stepping on the rights of adults and older minors to hear, see and read certain protected content.

A pair of federal laws in the 1990s pushing decency restrictions and safety online were struck down as unconstitutional, as have been a host of similar state laws — in Michigan, New Mexico, Arizona, South Carolina, Virginia and Vermont. A similar law in Utah is still pending in court.

“It really speaks to the difficulty of trying to write laws that fit constantly-changing technology,” said Carrie Davis, counsel for the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Any time a legislative body tries to pass a restriction on technology, it’s difficult because technology is changing so fast.”

A stark reminder out of the Cincinnati suburbs during Banned Books Week that many schools are still struggling with censorship.

Wyoming’s school board Tuesday night backed its superintendent’s plans to re-evaluate every non-textbook teachers recommend to students.

The decision was read to a packed audience of teachers and parents at the school board meeting.

Some teachers, students and parents criticized the extra scrutiny of teachers’ reading lists as censorship.

Martin Murray, a Wyoming parent, said the district has “set the stage for intellectual bullying” by allowing a few complaints to limit students’ reading choices.

The OSU Lantern promotes the ACLU’s Banned Books Week event in Columbus. The event was held Oct. 1, with over 70 attendees and rave reviews.

Each year, the nation recognizes Banned Book Week in honor of American authors whose works have been challenged and banned from library shelves. On Oct. 1, Columbus will celebrate the African-American authors who have been targets of censorship during “Banned Brilliance of African-American Authors.”

Sponsored by Ohio State’s department of African-American studies and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, the event will feature readings of passages from various banned books, said Morgan Patten, program coordinator for ACLU of Ohio.
“Brilliant authors such as Richard Wright, Toni Morrison and Ernest Gaines have been victims of censorship because their works contain content that many people view as too controversial and inappropriate for some age groups,” Patten said. “We hope to raise awareness of this issue.”

The Ohio State Highway Patrol has adopted a policy that limits the free speech of its employees to post certain information on social networking sites.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol has forbidden employees from mentioning their jobs on personal Web sites after a trooper posted sexually suggestive photos on her MySpace page.

The policy, enacted July 28, also prevents troopers from posting pictures of themselves or others in uniform and from using the patrol’s “flying wheel” insignia on social-networking sites without permission.

The policy acknowledges that employees have a right to personal Web sites but says that references to the patrol must be reviewed to ensure they do not “cause a lack in public confidence or discredit or disrespect” the agency.

The policy is denounced as a violation of employees’ First Amendment free-speech rights by an attorney for the troopers union and the lead lawyer for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, who counseled the patrol to avoid the action.

The ACLU held a press conference today to help inform others on the rights of students in school, particularly when they are using technology such as cell phones and internet.

The ACLU of Ohio has sent letters to school administrators throughout the state as a preemptive strike against harsh punishments and criminal charges against students for non-threatening Internet postings and cell phone use.

Instead, the civil liberties group is urging school officials to consider ways to educate teens about safe and respectful use of new communications technologies and to refrain from issuing discipline when students’ actions are conducted after school and away from classrooms.

“What a student does on his or her own time in the context of speech isn’t something that the school can touch, under the First Amendment,” said Brian Laliberte, a former deputy attorney general and attorney in Columbus.

Demonstrators came out to support a pro-choice advocate who was recently attacked by a group of anti-choice protestors outside of an Akron clinic.

The decades-long debate on abortion heated up on the streets of Akron Saturday, with demonstrators for and against setting up camp on separate sides of East Market Street in front of an abortion clinic.

The display is part of a national trend of increasing tension between the two sides since the May 31 slaying of George Tiller, a Kansas physician who performed late-term abortions.

On July 18, the two sides clashed outside the Akron Women’s Medical Group, 839 E. Market St., when Akron resident Charles Wright, an abortion supporter, suffered six broken ribs and a concussion during a skirmish.

Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Berding recently reconsidered a proposal that would limit panhandling in the city. The ACLU was a vocal opponent of such measures because soliciting for funds is protected free speech.

Just two days after he proposed the idea, Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Berding quietly dropped his proposal to tax panhandlers and require them to wear signs stating how much the city contributes to social service agencies on an annual basis. Despite the sudden flip-flop, Berding’s idea has inspired a similar concept targeting City Hall.

Jason Haap and Justin Jeffre, bloggers who operate The Cincinnati Beacon Web site, want a new law that would require all City Council members to wear a city-issued name badge whenever conducting public business. The badge would include their names, the amount they raised during their campaign, and how much that equals per vote.

[…]

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio issued a statement Thursday urging City Council to reject Berding’s proposal, and promising a lawsuit if it was approved.

“This is a transparent attempt to backdoor restrictions on the free speech rights of the poorest people in Cincinnati. Soliciting donations has time and again been classified as free speech, not as a business,” said Gary Daniels, the Ohio ACLU’s associate director. “It is clearly intended to unfairly target only the homeless and not others who may be soliciting donations in Cincinnati.”

A great editorial from the Middletown Journal on the passage of legislation that strips schools of the decision to say the Pledge of Allegiance or not.

An amendment offered by Butler County’s state senator, Gary Cates, R-West Chester, was part of the $50.5 billion, two-year state budget approved on Monday, July 13. But don’t be confused. Cates’ amendment does not address the state’s staggering budget crisis, which will force thousands of state-employee layoffs and program cuts, or Ohio’s rising unemployment rate in the general population.

Instead, it targets a single public school district in Ohio — Oberlin Schools in Lorain County — which, for the last 30 years, has not required the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited in its classrooms.

So, thanks to Cates’ amendment, local boards of education across Ohio will be forbidden from adopting policies that would restrict the recitation of the pledge in classrooms or change its wording in any way.

The JournalNews enumerates the many problems with the Ohio General Assembly’s current inclusion of an amendment in the state budget that would strip schools of their ability to decide if the pledge must be said in the classroom or not.

Did we miss an important announcement? Have school boards around Ohio been ordering the Pledge of Allegiance banned from classrooms? You say that one school district has done that?

Well, one school board — in Oberlin, Ohio — hardly constitutes a revolution. So why has state Sen. Gary Cates, a Republican from Butler County, introduced an amendment to the pending state budget to take away that discretion from local school boards?

Could it be that Cates and other Republican lawmakers are resorting again to hot-button politics — introducing meaningless, feel-good legislation that panders to some constituents while doing little to actually address Ohio’s pressing problems? Looks that way to us.

A new report by the ACLU uncovers threats to Muslim-Americans’ ability to donate to the charity of their choice. The ACLU currently has litigation underway in Toledo challenging the government’s shut down of KindHearts, a local non-profit, without any trial or evidence of wrong-doing.

The fight against terrorism has dealt a harsh blow to Muslim charities and interfered with their donors’ religious freedom, a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union concludes.

The report says statutes that it describes as overly broad and enforced in a discriminatory manner, coupled with a lack of due process, have starved Islamic charities of money and impeded Muslims’ ability to fulfill zakat, their religious requirement to make charitable donations.

The report is based on interviews with more than 100 Muslim community leaders as well as experts on antiterrorism laws and regulations. Though it gives no estimate of the decline in donations to Muslim groups, it says a total of nine Islamic charities have closed as a result of government action against them since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The ACLU takes a stand against an unconstitutional provision in Ohio’s proposed budget, which would strip school districts of the power to decide if the Pledge of Allegiance will be said in the classroom. It also forbids individuals from adding or removing words to the pledge.

The ACLU of Ohio is calling on lawmakers to remove a provision added to the state budget bill that would prohibit Ohio’s 613 public school districts from passing policies against reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms.

[…]

In a landmark free speech decision in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students could not be required to recite the pledge. The legislation would still allow individual students to choose not to recite the pledge.

“I hope they come to their senses or there’s just going to be a lot of expensive and unnecessary legal work coming forward,” Link said.

The Ohio General Assembly is considering an amendment to the state budget that would prevent school distrcits from making their own decision over whether the Pledge of Allegiance is recited in class and if it should be altered in any way.

A provision added to the state budget by a Republican lawmaker would protect teachers who want to have students recite the Pledge of Allegiance in their classrooms.

Sen. Gary Cates, from the Cincinnati area, offered the amendment after hearing about a decades-old policy of not allowing the pledge to the flag at the Oberlin school district, southwest of Cleveland.

“I would hate to see other school districts get tied up in administrative nightmares on this,” Cates said. “I think this is something they shouldn’t be wasting their time with. This is not a local issue, this is a state issue.”

He added, “I think we should encourage and provide opportunities for children to say the Pledge of Allegiance in their classrooms and school events. No one’s required to say it, but at the same token you can’t infringe on other people’s opportunities to have the Pledge of Allegiance said and recited at a public meeting or in a school.”

ACLU of Ohio Assiciate Director points out the inherent problems in Columbus’ policy of only allowing non-profit organizations to solicit for money on the streets.

While I’m hardly surprised, I am curious about the legal gymnastics employed by the City of Columbus regarding its anti-panhandling & charitable solicitation laws (“Homeless need a permit to solicit,” May 14).

The city’s legal department obviously worked overtime to devise a system to keep pesky panhandlers out of intersections, while allowing groups such as Charity Newsies and the Columbus Division of Fire access to those exact locations for the same purpose.

Indeed, city law forbids anyone from obstructing vehicular traffic in order to ask for money. Unless, as another section of city law explains, one is licensed to do so. How to get such a license? The law explains the only parties that can apply for licenses are nonprofit organizations—and not just any nonprofit, but only those that can pony up $1 million in liability insurance.

So, only the most well-established nonprofits are permitted to block traffic and put safety at risk (something I’ve personally witnessed several times), while the lowliest panhandlers are de facto treated as dangerous and intimidating, as acknowledged by the police spokesperson quoted.

In other words, if City Hall likes you, you have full free speech rights in Columbus. If City Hall does not like you, you will be further marginalized and subject to criminal punishment.

Instead of creatively drafting Columbus laws to favor some over others, the City’s time would be better spent researching the First Amendment and why it forbids government from treating people engaged in identical speech in such different ways.

Gary Daniels
Associate Director, ACLU of Ohio

Columbus officials seem unaware that the First Amendment prevents them from giving preferential treatment to well-established charities to solicit donations, while homeless are arrested for doing the same thing.

If the Charity Newsies are allowed to get a permit to solicit for money in the streets, then maybe the homeless population should have the opportunity to get one too. It may have saved one man a lot of headaches if he had, considering the ticket he got Tuesday from the Columbus police for asking folks for money while in the roadway.

“The officer issued him a warning the day before (about not being allowed to solicit),” said Sgt. Joseph Curmode of the Columbus Division of Police. “The next day he was back and he was charged with soliciting in the roadway and pedestrian in the roadway.”

The man, who was not identified, was ticketed at the Sinclair Road/I-71 ramp shortly before noon Tuesday by a CPD motorcycle cop. Curmode could not verify if the ticketed man was homeless, but he did say these types of charges are often associated with homelessness.

Civil libertarians celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landmark censorship case of Nico Jacboellis.

Each year, law professor Jonathan Entin leads a tour of legal landmarks in Greater Cleveland, including the old Heights Art Theatre at the corner of Euclid Heights Boulevard and Coventry Road.

He doesn’t take the students inside the building, with its gray-brick facade and ancient marquee. The interior has changed too much to have any meaning. It’s now home to Johnny Malloy’s Sports Pub and an upstairs hookah bar.

So Entin and his students just roll by in a 15-passenger van, talking about the events of Nov. 13, 1959, when theater manager Nico Jacobellis showed a French film called “The Lovers” and landed himself in jail — and, eventually, before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A victory for online free speech out of Columbus!

Ohio State University said Monday it will allow postings on its Facebook page that don’t always paint the university in a positive light.

Last week, the university deleted comments by a graduate student who asked about OSU President E. Gordon Gee’s service on the board of an energy company criticized by environmentalists.

After deleting the postings, Ohio State then blocked comments of any kind from appearing on the wall of the university’s Facebook page.

The university, the country’s largest, reopened the wall Friday to all posts.

The Register writes an outstanding editorial on the negative effects of censorship on our communities.

Artist James Parlin has stirred up a controvery at BGSU Firelands with one of his works of art.

But you won’t be able to see it. Firelands Dean James Smith reacted to objections to the piece by ordering it removed from the Little Gallery. In protest to this censorship, the gallery shut down the entire exhibit.

The trouble with censorship is someone else is deciding what you can hear, see or read. It supposes you are not intelligent enough or moral enough to decide for yourself and must be protected.

Recent censorship at the Firelands Branch of Bowling Green State University has many people in the community upset.

The removal of a sculpture from a Firelands campus art exhibit that administrators deemed “inappropriate” has raised questions surrounding First Amendment rights and academic freedom, prompting outrage in the University community and the attention of a national censorship watchdog organization.

What happened:

Last Wednesday when Art Professor David Sapp showed up to work at the Firelands campus, he was informed that a sculpture was removed from his gallery.

The removed sculpture, titled “The Middle School Science Teacher Makes a Decision He’ll Live to Regret,” depicts a girl wearing a backpack, on her knees, performing oral sex on a standing male middle school science teacher. It was one of 13 sculptures in the exhibit.

The Plain-Dealer reports on a recent letter the ACLU sent the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School Distrcit regarding censorship in one of their middle school libraries.

The ACLU said the First Amendment was violated when Brian Sharosky, principal of Roxboro Middle School, confiscated the November issue of Nintendo Power magazine. The magazine covers the world of Nintendo video games, from previews and ratings to secret codes and short cuts.

“Literature should not be removed from a school library simply because one person may find it inappropriate,” said Christine Link, ACLU of Ohio executive director, in a statement last week. She called for the board to “immediately order that the magazine be reinstated.”

This article came out in response to a letter the ACLU sent to the Summit County Board of MRDD regarding a memo that stated employees could not talk about anything that did not have to do specifically with their jobs.

The Summit County Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities board plans to clarify a memo restricting conversations at work after it drew criticism this week from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

…

In a letter to the agency, the ACLU said: ”Employees have a right to discuss with their fellow employees whatever they wish, including … the latest political and economic news or, indeed, how the Cavs, the Indians or the Browns did in their latest games.”

”Employers have a lot of leeway in limiting your behavior on the job, but that memo is just way over the top,” said Chris Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio. ”It would seem to indicate that there are some other issues that they need to deal with and talk about with their employees.”

The ACLU plans to review the second memo, she added.