After two weeks of contention and media attention, the student paper at Overland High School is scheduled to hit the presses again soon, thanks to legal advocacy and communications support provided by the ACLU of Colorado and to two student journalists who were willing to stand up for their own First Amendment rights.

The Scout, published by students in the newspaper production class at Overland High School in the Cherry Creek School district, had been terminated by the school principal following his institution of a controversial prior review policy. The newspaper advisor had been removed from her job and student journalists were told they could only publish one more edition of the paper this year, a Senior Review edition, instead of the two or three issues additional they had planned.

But editors Lori Schafer and Jaclyn Gutierrez would not allow their newspaper to be quietly shuttered.

They contacted the Student Press Law Center and the ACLU of Colorado. Within days, they were telling their story before a room full of reporters in a press conference hosted at the offices of the ACLU. More print, online, television and radio interviews followed. Calls came from across the country. And, the school decision to terminate The Scout and fire its advisor had been reversed.
The prior review policy – akin to press censorship -- was also rescinded.

Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado, said the matter played out as a real-life lesson on protecting and defending First Amendment rights and upholding the Colorado statue that grants press rights to journalists, including students.

What follows is an account of the press rights victory as reported by The Denver Post.

Overland High School paper will publish for now
By Mitchell Byars
The Denver Post

April 5, 2011

The principal of Overland High School has agreed to allow the student newspaper, the Overland Scout, to continue publishing issues until the end of the year without prior review.

Principal Leon Lundie made the announcement this morning at meeting with student editors Lori Schafer and Jaclyn Gutierrez, advisor Laura Sudik and school district representatives.

Schafer and Gutierrez said last month that Lundie shut down their paper and removed Sudik from her advisor post shortly after Schafer wrote an article that Lundie objected to.

School and district officials maintain that the situation was a misunderstanding and that the newspaper was never shut down. Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said that Lundie was unaware of a separate printing fund the district provides for printing newspapers and thought that they did not have the budget for further issues.

"I repeated to them I had expressed concern for whether they could produce additional editions in the time remaining, but did not tell them they could not publish the newspapers," Lundie said in a press release. "It is unfortunate that my statements were misunderstood. I agree that I probably could have communicated better and I take personal responsibility for that."

Lundie also rescinded his policy of prior review, which he had first implemented early this year. Sudik will remain the advisor for the rest of the year.

Schafer said that because they stopped working on further issues when this situation started, they are not sure how many issues they will be able to publish by the end of the year.

Lundie and Amole would not discuss the future of the paper beyond the rest of this year. Nor would they discuss Sudik's work as newspaper advisor. Sudik has advised the paper for 14 years and said she had been told she could continue working at the school next year, but would not manage the newspaper class.

Amole said that since October, Lundie has been looking at making changes to the newspaper class to coincide with changes being made at journalism institutions such as the University of Colorado.

Amole also said that a district policy blocking last names from being published online will be changed in time for a possible move to an online-only publication in the fall.

Students maintain that the situation was not a misunderstanding. They say rescinding the prior-review policy is a step forward, they still want assurances about the future of the paper and that of the advisor.

"The ultimate goal is to make sure the paper is run how it has been next year," Gutierrez said. "Having that freedom to print what we want is important. As a staff we're really close, and Sudik is part of this paper."

Adam Goldstein, an attorney advocate with the Student Press Law Center who is advising the students and was on speaker phone during the meeting, said that he hopes to work with the school board in ironing out the future of the school's paper.

"I'm hoping we can offer help and work on next year and attempt to resolve these differences," Goldstein said. "The things that happened here can't repeat themselves this summer."

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In a lawsuit filed in federal court March 28, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado alleged that the Denver Police Department engaged in racial profiling and biased policing when it targeted Denver resident Jose Sanchez, detained him without reasonable suspicion, and falsely accused him of being an “illegal immigrant.” Officers for the DPD then illegally arrested Sanchez for supposedly providing “false identification,” and illegally entered and searched the home of his girlfriend, Joshinna Carreras, without a warrant.

The supposedly “false” identification was a current and valid photo ID card issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which confirmed Mr. Sanchez’s legal presence and authorization to work in the United States.

Sanchez was jailed for five days, causing him to lose his job.

“This case highlights two issues that the Citizens Oversight Board and the Independent Monitor have repeatedly identified as subjects of multiple complaints about Denver police: Racial profiling and illegal entries into the homes of Denver residents,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “Denver police need to base their policing on evidence, not biased stereotypes and they need to respect the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.”

These are the facts asserted in the lawsuit:

Mr. Sanchez visited his girlfriend’s home on the evening of July 29, 2010 and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette while his girlfriend, Ms. Carreras, took a shower. While outside, Mr. Sanchez conversed in Spanish with an acquaintance; another Hispanic man. Police officers approached and demanded that Mr. Sanchez identify himself. When he provided his name, police immediately handcuffed him and demanded he produce an ID. He said the ID was in the apartment, and He offered to go inside to retrieve it. Instead, police officers went inside –declaring that they had the “right” to do so, even without asking the consent of Ms. Carreras, who was still in the shower.

They rummaged through Joshinna Carreras’ home and belongings, while she was still in the shower unaware that anyone was in her home. When she came out of her bathroom, startled at hearing strange voices in her apartment, one of the officers told her that Mr. Sanchez had given them consent to search her apartment. That was a lie.

Ms. Carreras finally located Mr. Sanchez’ photo identification in a backpack. The officers seized the valid Employment Authorization card and immediately declared that it was “fake.” They accused Mr. Sanchez of having multiple pieces of fake identification (though no others were found) arrested him without probable cause and took him to jail. Although the officers could have quickly checked the validity of the card with Homeland Security, they did not bother to do so.

Later, the City Attorney dropped the unjustified charge.

Silverstein said the unlawful treatment of the plaintiffs in the case is indicative of the Denver Police Department custom of closing ranks and not objecting to the actions of each other even when those actions are blatantly unconstitutional.

“None of the defendants objected to the hand-cuffing of Mr. Sanchez or to his arrest without probable cause,” the suit reads. “None of the defendants made any effort to stop their fellow officers from carrying out the illegal search of Ms. Carreras’s home and belongings. ... None of the individual defendants reported the misconduct of any of the officers to the Denver Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, names the City and County of Denver; Denver Police Department Sgt. Peri Beaulieu and DPD officers Dan Giles, Kevin Ujcich, Jeffery Heinis, Andre Strode and Glen S. Riggs as co-defendants. It requests a jury trial and seeks compensatory and punitive damages from each of the individual defendants, compensatory damages from the City and County of Denver, and reasonable attorney’s fees.

“The Denver Police Department has authorized its officers to enforce an ordinance that prohibits the carrying of false identification. But the department has failed to train its officers to recognize valid government-issued photo ID cards,” Silverstein said. “That’s a set-up for more false arrests and illegal detentions like this one and a recipe for the continuing deterioration of police-community relations.”

In addition to Silverstein, attorneys representing Sanchez and Carreras are ACLU Staff Attorney Rebecca Teitlebaum Wallace and ACLU Cooperating Attorneys Elisa Moran and John Mosby.

More on this case