The principal of a Bucks County high school suspended five students for committing an act that radicals Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, and the Sons of Liberty would have encouraged.

    The students didn't threaten anyone, unsheathe any weapons, steal anything, destroy property, openly defy authority, get drunk, or take illicit drugs, all of which were committed by the nation's revolutionaries. What the students did was to create a newspaper.

    On four letter-size pages, typeset into three columns a page and sprinkled with shock words, the Laundromat Liberator made fun of students, teachers, and administrators at Council Rock High School, Newtown, Pa. One of the editors said they were trying to emulate the sharp humor and biting satire of The Onion, an internet newspaper.

    Although the articles fell far short of journalistic excellence, and may have been unnecessarily crude and cruel in the guise of humor, they had an underlining of truth. If no one objected, the newspaper would have been little more than an attempt to be cute, drawing giggles and, hopefully, discussion from the students, while sucking outrage from parents, teachers, and administrators. After a few issues, either the stories would have become sharper, the issues better defined, or the novelty would have worn away, and the editors would have looked at other ways to tap their curious and creative minds.

    But, the principal, not unlike most school administrators, confiscated the 100 or so copies of the newspaper, then suspended the students for five days because of the "emotional impact" that teasing has upon students. He said he was sensitive to what had recently happened in Santee, Calif., when a 15-year-old student, possibly upset by being the brunt of random high school teasing, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others. The case for suspension, said the principal, was merely "a safety issue." The district superintendent claimed the seizure and suspension was "a disciplinary matter."

    Student reaction, according to one of the editors, was "they thought our paper was hilarious. Teacher reaction was, 'you guys did a very bad thing. Do you have any left that I can see?'"

    Reacting to questions about the seizure and subsequent suspension, the principal lashed out that media coverage was "a disservice to kids." He argued, "Anger builds [and] you are going to create more interest in what was in it, and what was in it was hurtful."

    To further the assault upon the rights of free speech, or a public school's morbid fear of controversy, the local chapter of the National Honor Society began an investigation "to get information and references" that could lead to the expulsion of the four editors who are Society members. Two of the students are at the top of their 902-student senior class; a third is ranked in the top 5 percent; one is in the top 20 percent. Fortunately for the school, which would have faced even more media coverage had it expelled students from an honor society, the investigation eventually fizzled out. The sanctioned student newspaper, The Indianite, never published anything about the alternative newspaper, the students, or the Honor Society investigation.

    Those who believe the right way to stop commentary, even "hurtful" commentary, is by silencing it and punishing the editors have misunderstood their own civics lessons.

    Our Founding Fathers were well aware of John Milton's somewhat "radical" arguments in Parliament in 1644 that those who seek to destroy writing destroy reason itself, and that mankind is best served when there is a "free and open encounter" of all ideas--even "hurtful" ones. They were also aware of Lord Blackstone's strong arguments against prior restraint of free speech by the government. Influenced by the views of Milton, Blackstone, and others, Thomas Jefferson pushed for the First Amendment to assure freedom of religion, speech, the press, and the right of the people not only to peacefully assemble and raise whatever issues they wished, but also to petition the government for a "redress of grievances."

    Ben Franklin, working on his brother's newspaper, snuck articles into Boston's {italic} New England Courant {end italic}, then later under his name and a series of aliases into his own paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, published less than 25 miles from what became the site of Council Rock High School. Many of Franklin's articles were vicious attacks upon individuals and the government. Sam Adams, Benjamin Edes, John Gill, and other Radicals, a minority in the Colonies even in 1776, used newspapers to unify the people and push for the Revolution. Their words were often hurtful, and even untrue. Even after the Revolution, newspapers backing Thomas Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists maliciously attacked Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison--and papers backing the Federalists were equally vicious in attacks upon Jefferson. But, as much as each of the Founding Fathers felt the sting of criticism, even if unfairly, they understood why there had to be a free press.

    During the mid-nineteenth century, philosopher John Stuart Mill stated, "We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes told us democracy is best served in a "marketplace of ideas." And Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1925 argued, "When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free."

    Individuals have recourse against malicious falsehood through libel laws, the community through ever-tightening standards of obscenity and pornography laws. And, all of the courts, interpreting the intent of those who created our Constitution, agree that the recourse to views and writings we disagree with is through more free speech, not less.

    Perhaps, instead of thinking the Constitution doesn't apply to public high schools, school administrators, in the spirit of education, could have brought in writers and journalists to discuss satire, the vital role that alternative and underground newspapers play in America, and how to better craft publications to achieve the impact student writer-editors might desire while respecting the rights of their readers. But, a thick-headed administration, no matter how "humane" it thought its reasons were, saw free speech and an unfettered press not as a right, but as an evil.

    Perhaps, more than two centuries after the Revolution, school administrators may soon understand why our Founding Fathers made sure we were a republic founded upon a base of ideas and public discussion, not a kingdom of fear and tyranny.

Copyright 2001 Walter M. Brasch