A screenshot of the Har-Ber Herald's investigative story originally published on Oct. 30 at HarBerHerald.com.
Springdale’s Har-Ber High School, named for the late trucking entrepreneurs and altruists Bernice and Harvey Jones, shifted into reverse last week on its headline-making shutdown of the student newspaper, which had published an article the administration didn’t like.
Buzzfeed made a national story of the shutdown of The Har-Ber Herald after the offending article, “Athletes’ Transfers in Question,” was yanked from the Herald website on orders from the principal. The story asked whether six football players had transferred properly under “hardship” rules or simply jumped to a Springdale High School team that’s brighter on college recruiters’ radar.
The Springdale School District, which called the Oct. 30 student report “intentionally negative, demeaning, hurtful and potentially harmful to the students,” nonetheless allowed the story to be reposted to the Herald website on Tuesday, bowing to a 1995 Arkansas law that shields student press rights.
The district doesn’t dispute the main thrust in the story, which is a bit disorganized and slow to make its point. “It’s a student article. It rambles a bit, but it’s good journalism, and the students should be commended, not censored,” said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center in Washington. “They certainly shouldn’t have their adviser’s job threatened.”
Har-Ber High School effectively suspended the paper when Principal Paul Griep, a newcomer to the school this year, ordered a halt to publishing until guidelines could be set. He instructed faculty adviser Karla Sprague to pull the article.
But district spokesman Rick Schaeffer said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that in view of “the legal landscape,” the district would allow it to be republished. “This matter is complex, challenging and has merited thorough review. The social and emotional well-being of all students has been and continues to be a priority of the district.” He said that was all the district would have to say on the matter.
“Arkansas is one of 14 states in the country that have passed additional protections for student journalists,” Hiestand said. “Except for a couple of nit-picky things that school officials pointed out, they are not disputing the accuracy of the story. The students got the story, and they have good interviews, the material to back it up.”
“I am glad the school officials are reconsidering,” he added.
Journalism professor Carlton M. “Sonny” Rhodes told Arkansas Business that school administrators were wise to recover their PR fumble. The move lets school officials “save themselves time, money and embarrassment,” said Rhodes, a longtime newsman and now an associate professor in the School of Mass Communication at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “Plus they make a positive statement about their respect for their students’ First Amendment rights.”
The student article, written by Jack Williams, Molly Hendren and Matteo Campagnola, was defended by Arkansas Press Women, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Arkansas Press Association, among others. The case made a minor social media celebrity of the Herald’s top editor, Halle Roberts, a senior who hopes to work for ESPN.
“Springdale’s student journalists deserve better from their school leaders than this apparent act of censorship,” Arkansas Press Association Executive Director Ashley Wimberley said before the reversal. “The APA is proud of these young reporters for their willingness to seek out and report the truth.”
The school administration has an ability to be heard, and to address what it sees as the article’s shortcomings in a published commentary or letter to the editor.
Federal courts have ruled that students do not have the full rights of non-students, but the Arkansas law specifically gave back some powers student journalists lost in a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hiestand said. It allows student publications to “publish up to the point where the material becomes unlawful, the same limits that professional journalists face like libel and obscenity.”
“It’s an unfortunate thing we’ve seen many times,” Hiestand said. “A spotlight has to be put on these cases to hold school officials accountable. The law lets school officials censor speech if that speech creates a material and substantial disruption of school activities. That’s absolutely not what’s happened here.
“This is a lawful news story. Certainly it has upset some people in the community, but it’s not the sort of thing that creates a serious disruption allowing the school to shut the paper down.”
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