‘Monitoring the Situation’: Free Speech Group Threatens High School Over Anti-ICE Cartoon
by John Gage
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit free speech organization, sent a letter to Gretna East High School after the school pulled a controversial anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cartoon from the school newspaper.
“FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative is concerned by the demands of Gretna East High School administrators that students remove an anti-ICE cartoon from Gretna East Media’s website, and by the school’s subsequent imposition of prior review,” the group said in a Tuesday letter they sent to the school. “We join GEM students and the Student Press Law Center in calling on you to grant GEM reporter Nicholas Mitchell’s appeal of these censorial acts, which violate student journalists’ First Amendment rights.”
The letter closed by demanding that Gretna Public Schools “rectify” their action by ending “censorship and prior review.” The group asked the district to implement a policy to protect the “expressive rights” of student journalists and told the school system they have till April 15 to respond to their letter.
When asked by The Plains Sentinel if they planned on suing the school, a FIRE spokesperson said the group “will continue monitoring the situation.” FIRE regularly sues public colleges, universities, and government agencies over First Amendment violations.
Last week, Aidan McClaren, a junior at Gretna East High School, made an appeal to the Gretna Public Schools Board of Education following his cartoon titled “ICE’s militaristic operations are history repeating” being pulled from the website of the student newspaper.
“I felt that people might not agree with it,” McClaren told Nebraska Public Media in an interview about the cartoon. “I thought it might not be the kind of thing that we would put in our paper.” Despite his initial reservations, the school newspaper went ahead and published it.
In a statement regarding the cartoon, the district said it remains “committed to helping our students understand and engage in responsible reporting and the important role journalism plays in our community as a whole.”
The district stated that they also “have an obligation to ensure that student publications do not include content likely to cause a substantial disruption to the school environment.”
John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.
