An Unimagined Possibility: How Neshaminy High Enforces Racial Slurs
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In response to Neshaminy district suspending journalism teacher, Tara Huber, and cutting The Playwickian Newspaper budget, California-based educator Melissa Wantz and her journalism students raised the alarm on scholastic censorship.
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Melissa Wantz, Ventura, CA
As scholastic censorship issues go, the controversy at Neshaminy High School is unusual. Typically, school authorities are trying to stop student journalists from using offensive language or racial slurs; they usually are not mandating they do so.
The two-year assault by high school administrators in Langhorne, PA, to control and punish teenage journalists of The Playwickian, who conscientiously object to publishing the word “R******s” in their school newspaper, is a case study in how authorities intent on limiting student autonomy can win a battle but may lose a war.
As everyone knows, technology today gives student journalists the ability and power to publish to an infinite, international audience. It also provides new tools and platforms to protest injustice and call for change, as my journalism staff and I learned in October 2014 when we launched a successful online fundraising campaign on behalf of the Playwickian staff and adviser.
The majority of principals, superintendents and governing school boards who oversee journalism programs in their schools respect the job of the high school journalism adviser in the same way they respect the job of the football coach or the drama teacher. They stay out of the way. The principal lets kids do their work with appropriate latitude, which for a journalism program means without prior review or prior restraint. This means the principal, superintendent and school board read student news and opinions at the appropriate time — after publication, not before.
Journalism advisers are trusted by their administration to coach reporters and editors to use professional best practices, including the Model Code of Ethics published by the National Scholastic Press Association. School leaders may not always agree with the decisions made by student editors or with their coverage, which sometimes push the limits of what adults are comfortable with, but they want to know the truth about what students think, feel and know. Practicing First Amendment rights is believed by most educators to be one of the core purposes of secondary education. Many principals seem to understand that the spirit of scholastic journalism collapses when a program is grasped too tightly by adults.
At Neshaminy, unfortunately, this appears not to be the case. Or perhaps administrators there know exactly what they are trying to do.
High school journalism is a “unicorn,” different from every other subject. At its best, the journalism room is one of the few places where the kids are in charge. New advisers discover to their delight that students who are given editorial control of their publications learn to think thoughtfully and independently, even beyond what is asked of them in English or history classes. Advisers who follow best teaching practices, allowing students to make their own editorial decisions, are typically impressed by how seriously and fairly journalists approach their responsibilities.
The Playwickian adviser Tara Huber knew this in 2014, when her student editors voted to discontinue the use of the R-word because they found it offensive, even though it has long been the school’s mascot. She did not dissuade them, although she understood they might be “ahead of their time” in their small, politically conservative community. When her students refused to run a letter to the editor with the R-word spelled out, even after directly ordered to by administration, and instead printed a blank space where the letter would have gone, she knew there might be personal and professional consequences.
There were.
Huber was punished by the school district for allowing her students to go to press, suspended from work for two days and docked about $1,200 of her salary. The students were punished, too. Administrators took $1,200 from the publication’s school account as a fine, took control of the Playwickian’s Twitter and Facebook feeds and commandeered their online newspaper. They updated district bylaws to ensure this prior restraint was legal, doubling down on the students and the adviser at every turn. Vice Sports wrote an article recapping the events and titled it: “One High School’s Insane Quest to Make Students Print ‘R******s.’ “
But like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s “Fantasia” who chops a magical broom into pieces only to see each piece become its own broom, the over-reaction by Neshaminy administrators only sparked additional voices to speak for the Playwickian staff.
Dismayed by the injustices being done to their peers across the country, my journalism students at the Foothill Dragon Press in Ventura, Calif., wrote an editorial on their behalf in May and created an Indiegogo campaign called “Free the Playwickian” in October to raise $2,400 for Huber and the staff. Dozens of publications such as The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Education Week, MSNBC and the Philadelphia Inquirer covered the Playwickian controversy, sometimes mentioning or linking to the online fundraiser. Donations poured in.
By the close of the campaign a month later, we had reached 284 percent of the goal, with 162 backers from the United States, Canada and the European Union giving over $6,800. The money covered Huber’s pay and the students’ printing funds, and the extra cash paid travel and hotel expenses for Playwickian editors to speak about the controversy at journalism conferences across the country over the next year.
My editors were interviewed several times about their support and were asked why they got involved with a group of students 3,000 miles away who they had never met. For them, the Neshaminy situation was simply unbelievable, an unimagined possibility. And it ultimately served as an object lesson that helped them understand their greater privilege and what it might be like with less freedom.
In California, student expression is protected by several state education laws. Public and private high school journalists have the right to determine their own content, and journalism advisers in public schools are protected from being removed from their positions should administration seek retaliation. These laws have empowered the state’s students over decades to do some of the most thought-provoking, quality journalism in the country.
My students also supported the Playwickian editors because they understood that some words have historical roots or connotations that should disqualify them from continued use. For example, while earlier generations of students freely used the words “retarded” or “gay” as derogatives, these practices are socially unacceptable now, rightly penalized and condemned by most educators and parents. While some adults and kids shake their heads over such “political correctness,” many thoughtful, educated people understand language practices need ongoing revisions and updates.
The R******s sports mascot should be discontinued because it is rooted in — and thus can never escape — disrespect. At its origins, the word was derogatory toward a group of humans, and no amount of school pride can change that history. It joins a long list of now inappropriate school mascots.
California recently became the first state in the nation to pass a law banning this mascot from schools, impacting just four campuses. Perhaps other states will be inspired to take legal action to force the issue. Or maybe schools will take it upon themselves to do the right thing before being mandated to do so. The upcoming documentary The R Word is an important step toward educating people about what is happening in Langhorne, and the project deserves our support.
In the meantime, the assault on journalism continues at Neshaminy. The Playwickian is still choked by prior restraint and threatened by heavy-handed district rules that seriously limit student expression and effectively crush editorial autonomy.
This fall, it will be up to a new generation of editors to decide if they want to continue the fight.
Melissa Wantz is immediate past president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. She has been a high school journalism adviser for seven years at Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, Calif., and Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. In 2014, she hosted a successful fundraising campaign “Free the Playwickian.” The R Word filmmakers invited her to share what compelled her to defend Neshaminy High School journalists — here is her perspective, from the other coast.
Follow the ongoing production and developments of The R Word here.
Read additional articles written by former The Playwickian editors Reed Hennessy and Timothy Cho.
