Student journalists from Overland High School’s decades-old student newspaper, The Scout, spoke out Thursday at the ACLU of Colorado, voicing complaints that the school principal has prematurely ended production of the paper for this year and fired their adviser in a student-administrator debate over “prior review” of newspaper content.

Retaliation against public school students for publishing lawful editorial content is specifically prohibited by Colorado law, and is also contrary to the First Amendment, Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado said during the press conference. “The Colorado Legislature has expressly declared in statue that students of the public schools shall have the right to exercise the right of freedom of speech and of the press.”

But student journalists Lori Schafer and Jaclyn Gutierrez, both editors at The Scout, told members of the media that there First Amendment rights had been abridged by the school principal.

The censorship started March 8, when students, complying with Principal Leon Lundie’s new “prior review” policy, showed Principal Lundie their news-page story about an Overland student who died after sustaining an injury at a wrestling meet. Principal Lundie said the student reporters had incorrectly listed the student’s cause of death.

On March 10, students brought Principal Lundie a copy of the death certificate, confirming that the cause of death was correctly stated in the original article. Principal Lundie then complained that the article lacked “balance.”

On March 11, Principal Lundie removed teacher Laura Sudik as newspaper adviser and informed students that, after this current issue had gone to press, the newspaper class would turn into a journalism class and stop publication.. Sudik had advised the newspaper for 14 years; in that time, no principal had imposed prior review until this year.

Last Friday, Principal Lundie told student editors that, after this issue, The Scout would not be allowed to publish another full issue. Seniors will be permitted to participate in a “senior issue” at the end of the year, which contains first-person anecdotes from graduating newspaper staff members, but no news.

There will be no newspaper in the future, Principal Lundie said Friday, because he does not like the “direction” in which the newspaper is going.

According to student editors Schafer and Gutierrez, the staff has tried to keep communication open with the administration, but repeated meetings with Principal Lundie have proven unproductive.

“The newspaper has been a part of the school for decades,” Schafer said. “Principal Lundie thinks he can just come and shut down the paper during his first year of oversight of the school because it does not help in his goal of creating the ‘perfect image.’”

Gutierrez said, “He refuses to compromise with us and refuses to accept the fact that the goal of a student publication is to report not only the good stories, but also the bad. We are not PR agents, we are reporters. Our job is to enlighten the student body and the community of the goings on inside of our school whether good or bad.”

In January, when the semester’s second issue was published, Principal Lundie imposed what he calls “seeing before we print,” a practice known everywhere else as prior review.

Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center – a nonprofit group near Washington D.C.,that provides legal help to student media – said the administration’s reasoning for shutting down the newspaper is not legal.

“Colorado law specifically prohibits censorship of student media except in the rarest of circumstances, “Goldstein said. “Showing your principal that he’s confused about how a student athlete died isn’t one of the things that justify censorship.”

Goldstein also cautioned that permitting students to run the article about the death of their classmate does not make cancelling future publications any less retaliatory or illegal.

“That’s like arguing that it’s not a civil rights violation for Gaddafi to put a protester in jail, provided he lets the protestor finish his march to the palace first,” Goldstein said. “You don’t measure it by when the axe falls, you measure it by the motivation for swinging the axe in the first place. I think the motivation is pretty transparent.”

Schafer and Gutierrez believe that this type of censorship is Principal Lundie’s attempt to protect the school’s image as well as his own.Schafer and Gutierrez are working with lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the Student Press Law Center to determine their next step and have been encouraged by other students and community members to find a way to keep publishing the newspaper.

“Everything we put into the newspaper has affected the reporter or students who attend Overland, and we all have the right to say how we feel. Not everyone needs to agree with it, but the fact that people have different views should be accepted and what they have to say should be respected. However, that is what Principal Lundie has just shut down,” Gutierrez said.

The students seek to have all of the unlawful consequences of Principal Lundie’s decisions reversed: the newspaper reinstated to regular publication with its adviser restored to her position, and an end to future censorship or mandatory prior review by administrators.

“Each story comes from the voice of a student: a voice needing to be heard. Principal Lundie had no right to do what he has done. He took away our freedom of speech and freedom of press and it is illegal. He needs to know that what he did and is doing is wrong. I’m going to do what I can and need to in order to stick up for the rights of my newspaper staff and get back what was taken from us,” Schafer said

Facing a class-action suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the ACLU National Prison Project, the Boulder County Jail has agreed to a settlement, ending a policy that restricted most inmates’ outgoing mail to post-cards only.

Prisoners at the jail – many of whom are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of any crime – will once again be permitted to send letters in sealed envelopes to their children, family members, loved ones and friends. The settlement, reached on Friday, is detailed in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the parties.

Faced with a similar lawsuit from the ACLU of Colorado, the El Paso County Jail ended its post card-only prisoner mail policy in December. El Paso and Boulder County adopted the policies in 2010 and the lawsuits followed soon afterwards.

“Incarcerated individuals will no longer be forced to avoid personal topics such as medical, financial or relationship issues simply because their words are in plain sight for anyone to read,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein. “They will no longer have to guard against communications that they do not wish their children to see. They now can communicate with art and drawings or seek the advice of their clergy without having to expose that to the world.”

The ACLU of Colorado’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of five individual prisoners who represent a class of current and future prisoners subject to the policy. Chief Judge Wiley Y. Daniel granted the lawsuit class-action status March 8.

The settlement agreement ending the policy calls for an official change within 21 days of the filing of the Memorandum of Understanding.

Specifically --

• Inmates will now be allowed to write and send personal letters on paper provided by the jail and with envelopes supplied by the jail – without having to receive special permission to do so.
• Postcards will be used by inmates only on a voluntary basis, if at all.
• The jail must notify attorneys for the ACLU of Colorado if it plans any changes to the outgoing inmate mail policy anytime within the next two years.

The settlement agreement is expected to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners at its next meeting.

“Writing letters to people in the free world is critical for helping prisoners maintain ties to their families and communities and ensuring their successful reintegration upon release,” said David Fathi, Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “Enacting policies that significantly restrict the First Amendment freedoms of all current and future pre-trial detainees and prisoners in the jail was both unwise and unconstitutional. We are pleased to see it end and trust that this will embolden others to challenge similar policies wherever they may crop up across the country.”

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A federal district court judge today granted class action certification to the ACLU of Colorado’s First Amendment lawsuit against the Boulder County Jail, moving forward the ACLU’s efforts to end unconstitutional post-card only prisoner mail policies.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of jail detainees, challenges a policy implemented in March 2010 that restricts all outgoing prisoner correspondence at the Boulder County Jail to postcards supplied by the jail, except narrow categories deemed to be “legal” or “official” mail.

“Class certification was a critical and necessary step to preserving our opportunity to get an injunction banning the post card policy that is at issue in this case. We are very pleased with the ruling certifying this class,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director.
With class certification, Silverstein added, the class itself has standing to litigate the claims even if the individual claims of the named and unnamed plaintiffs become moot because of a detainee’s release or transfer.

In addition to certifying class status, Chief Judge Wiley Y. Daniel in his written decision also named Silverstein and David C. Fathi, director of the National Prison Project of the ACLU Foundation, as Class Counsel.

Chief Judge Daniel set April 21 as the date for a hearing on a motion for preliminary injunction in the case to compel the Boulder County Jail to immediately end its challenged postcard-only policy.

The ACLU lawsuit maintains that the policy violates the First Amendment rights of prisoners and their correspondents, including intimate partners, other family members, clergy and investigative journalists, among others.

“Writing letters to people outside of prison is critical for helping prisoners maintain their connection to their families and their communities and is also a key element of ensuring their successful reintegration upon release,” Fathi said. “Restricting the First Amendment freedoms of detainees is not only unwise but unconstitutional.”

The Boulder County Jail, located in Boulder, Colorado, has an average daily population of 400. It houses both convicted prisoners and detainees awaiting trial. The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of five individual prisoners who represent a class of current and future prisoners subject to the post-card only policy.

The lawsuit names as defendants Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, and Division Chief Larry R. Hank, jail administrator. It seeks a court ruling invalidating the post-card only policy.

Boulder County is now the only jail in Colorado with such a policy.

Rather than attempt to defend the post-card only practice before a judge, the El Paso County jail dropped a similar policy in December just after attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Colorado filed suit.

“If jail officials are serious about lowering recidivism and increasing public safety,” Silverstein said, “they will realize that preserving a prisoner’s right to send letters actually protects us all.”

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