High School Paper Goes "Gossip Girl," Raises a Ruckus

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Feb 16, 2009 6:50PM

After printing a salacious issue about underage encounters that identified involved students by name, a Lincolnshire high school newspaper will face more restrictions that some say are tantamount to censorship. The 3,400 copies of the Jan. 30 issue of the Stevenson High School newspaper "The Statesman" disappeared from the newsstands almost immediately, though the school says they did not remove them.

The issue centered on the topic of hooking up, which the Sun-Times defines as, "a slang term used by many teens and college students for making out or casual sex with someone they are not in a serious relationship with." That seems like a fairly accurate summary of the many entries in the Urban Dictionary.

The paper looked at several aspects of casual sex and drinking, but the school's administration claims that it is shoddy journalism that concerns them most.

[Jim Conrey, spokesman of the Lincolnshire school,] said the Jan. 30 issue ... recklessly exposed the identities of the students by using their first name and graduation year and failed to achieve balance by omitting those opposed to hooking up.

It also abandoned ethics by including the timeline of one student's successful quest to get a girl into bed at a party, which Conrey described as a "how-to guide for sexual predators."

Now the school's administration and school board are wrestling to find the balance between protecting the innocence of minors and protecting their constitutional rights. Parents and First Amendment advocates have their own opinions. Starting this month, though, students will have to submit their work through a review process led by school officials. Dan Humphrey was not amused.