[T]he editors of the Burlington High School student newspaper say that Principal Noel Green is reinstating a student media policy which requires administrative review of stories they plan to publish.
But the editors and press advocates say the policy, which was in place for the student newspaper before the passage of so-called “New Voices” legislation in 2017, violates the Vermont law.
Green has not responded to a request for comment. Nor has Burlington Superintendent Yaw Obeng.
The student editors have been facing off with their administration since they published a story revealing the Agency of Education had filed six licensing charges against the high school’s guidance director, Mario Macias. But they removed the story from their website after Green ordered them to Tuesday morning and have said that his order violated the law.
Green later reversed course Thursday, saying the article could go back up because other media outlets had confirmed and covered the charges.
The student editors behind the story — Julia Shannon-Grillo, Halle Newman, Nataleigh Noble and Jenna Peterson — canceled a scheduled meeting with Green on Friday after their adviser, Beth Fialko-Casey, told them Green was instituting the prior review policy. They provided VTDigger with a copy of the administrator’s new policy.
“We are saddened that this new policy does not include contributions from Burlington High School students reporters, or community members, or experts in the field, or school board members. And we are shocked that it does not acknowledge Vermont law H413, also known as New Voices,” members of the Register staff said in a statement.
Green’s latest directive has been met with universal condemnation from civil liberty and media advocates.
“I really don’t understand what the administration is doing here,” said Lia Ernst, an attorney at the Vermont ACLU. “It made the wrong call at the outset, and then in face of widespread criticism it relented, albeit for dubious reasons. And now it appears to want to impose a blanket prior restraint, which is flatly prohibited under the law.”
Mike Donoghue, the executive director of the Vermont Press Association, said he was “shocked” to learn about Green’s decision to reinstate the 48-hour policy.
“On its face, it does appear to violate the spirit, intent, and letter of the law,” he said.
The Student Press Law Center had been considering suing the district before Green decided to let the Macias story go back up on the website. Mike Hiestand, a senior legal consultant with the SPLC, said this latest development “shows a stunning, sort of misunderstanding of this law.”
“I have a feeling that we are probably going to be seeing them in court in the not too distant future,” he said.
Hiestand added that while the district can, technically, read the student paper before it is published, it can’t decide what articles are ultimately published, unless the content falls under the narrow scope of speech not protected by the New Voices legislation. That includes articles that are libelous, for example, or “gratuitously profane.”
Green’s new policy specifically references the types of speech not protected by the law, and say prior review of all student articles is “the only way school administrators can ensure that distributed material passes this litmus test.”
Hiestand says that Green’s prior decision to pull the article about Macias suggests he won’t make the right call in the future. Green defended taking that article down by citing that part of the law which exempts speech that “creates the imminent danger of materially or substantially disrupting the ability of the school to perform its educational mission.”
Hiestand has said that standard only applies to speech that threatens the physical disruption of classes – like calling for a walk-out – not to factual articles that detail public misconduct charges against an educator. (In fact, the law specifically protects speech that “is critical of the school or its administration.”)
“Clearly this principal is in no position to be reviewing the newspaper,” Hiestand said. “I mean, he broke the law.”
