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.

Residents at Lake Local Schools continue to clash over whether “belief in God” should be included under the public school’s values statement.

More residents are telling the Lake Local Schools Board of Education that they believe in God and don’t want the district’s values statement to change.

School board members are wrestling with whether they should drop the phrase “belief in God” from the district’s values statement.

A dozen residents addressed the school board at a meeting Monday night, and 11 urged the district to keep the statement. Ironically, the only person who recommended dropping the phrase is a minister.

The board delayed making a final decision on the issue, primarily because of residents urging the district to fight.

“There’s no hurry here,” Bill Jelen, the school board’s president, said after the meeting.

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Students, leaders and community members at Lake Local Schools are struggling with how to respond to a recent letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that takes issue with part of the school’s values statement that promotes belief in God.

Mackenzie Michalk and Alex Looney don’t want the Lake Local Board of Education to change the district’s values statement.

The Lake High School juniors also dislike that an outside organization — the Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is threatening a lawsuit if the school board doesn’t make the change.

Michalk considers the threat a bully’s move. She dislikes that Freedom From Religion Foundation members are trying to “impose their belief in having no beliefs.”

Michalk and Looney have responded by letting folks know their beliefs. The pair are selling T-shirts to fellow Lake High students and area residents that read: “We value a belief in God.”

State lawmakers have still not come to a resolution on whether young people who sext will be charged with as sex offenders. While the ACLU supports not charging underage people with felonies, we advocate that this should not be a matter for criminal courts, but for education of students and parents.

A Warren County state representative is concerned a bill crafted a year ago to address “sexting” between minors has not passed the legislature.

State Rep. Ron Maag, R-Lebanon said he’s reached out to state Rep. Tyrone Yates, D-Cincinnati, who chairs the House Criminal Justice Committee, on Substitute House Bill 132, which would make the creation, exchange and possession of nude materials between minors by a telecommunication device a first-degree misdemeanor.

The bill would not rule out the possibility of a felony charge, which could be reserved for cases where the true intent of the crime is malicious.

Columbus school officials are considering adding sexual orientation to it’s non-discrimination policy for staff as well as students.

Columbus schools are moving to prohibit discrimination against any student or employee based on sexual orientation, according to a policy change that will get a first reading at a Board of Education meeting today.

In listing the types of discrimination that won’t be tolerated in education programs, activities and employment practices, the ordinance would add prejudice based on sexual orientation to the current race, creed, sex, age, color, national origin and disability.

[…]

“Sexual orientation is not included yet in state or federal nondiscrimination laws, which is why it’s so important to have them added to local policies,” said Carrie Davis, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

Attempts to codify protections for sexual orientation sometimes have been controversial.

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

A report on what some Ohio schools are doing to ensure their holiday programs do not unfairly endorse one religion over others.

As superintendent of the Jefferson Local School District in Madison County, William Mullett doesn’t worry too much about being politically correct at Christmastime.

The district has allowed Christmas trees as school decorations and Christmas carols at holiday concerts.

Teachers don’t push Christianity or partake in religious observances in the classroom, but secular celebrations of the season don’t raise an eyebrow.

That’s probably because the district is homogenous and almost exclusively Christian, Mullett acknowledged.

“It’s really never been a big issue here,” he said.

That’s in contrast to his seven years in the Sylvania City Schools, near Toledo. The district had a large Jewish population, and the rules on winter holidays were precise. For example, Christmas trees were OK on a staff member’s desk but not in a hallway or on a classroom floor.

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.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court categorically forbidding schools from doing so, a school in Iowa strip searched a group of students because a sum of money went missing.

School’s in! September’s here; pencils are sharpened, apples are polished, and — in one Iowa town where administrators’ summer reading list clearly did not include Safford Unified School Dist. #1 v. Redding — female students are strip-searched on suspicion of theft.

The Des Moines Register reported over the weekend that on Aug. 21, the third day of school, a student at Atlantic High reported $100 missing from her purse. Five girls who were somehow deemed persons of interest in the case were asked to strip in front of a female counselor and their accuser (!?). (No boys were involved because apparently none were around when the theft was believed to have occurred.) Lawyers (yuh!) for the girls’ families told the Register that (paraphrase) each girl stripped in varying degrees. One 15-year-old “was asked to remove all of her clothing including her undergarments.” Another asked if she could lift up her bra and was told that wasn’t good enough. One was searched twice. At least two were permitted not to remove their underwear because it was more revealing than the others’ and therefore an unlikely hiding place. [End of repellent soft-core juvie prison scene]

Students, have you been strip-searched at school? Tell us about it.

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.