News
942
2005-07-05
2005-06-21
Fighting for our
stories
By Dan Allen
Some of the
editors at East Bakersfield [Calif.] High School’s
student paper, The Kernal, are gr
Some of the
editors at East Bakersfield [Calif.] High School’s
student paper, The Kernal, are graduating this
year, but that hasn’t derailed their commitment
to see that a series of articles on gay students
eventually gets published in the paper. In late April John
Gibson, principal of the school in California’s
Central Valley, forced the editors to remove a slate
of five gay-themed pieces that featured candid
reflections from out students. Citing safety concerns,
Gibson later said the articles could only be published
without the students’ names. But that
didn’t fly with the students. They sued, and a Kern
County superior court judge on May 25 denied an emergency
request to allow the articles to appear in the
paper’s year-end issue.
“Our whole editorial staff has felt all
along that this is extremely important,” said
Kernal editor Joel Paramo, 18, who is now pushing
to get the articles published in next year’s first
issue. “It’s not because I’m gay
or that any of the other editors are gay. We just feel
that this is an important issue that shouldn’t be
dismissed with a compromise. The students featured in
the articles have a right to be who they want to be.”
Rudy Cachu, a 17-year-old East Bakersfield
junior, is one of those students. Completely out at
school, Cachu had no qualms about being profiled in
The Kernal, though he’s grown a bit weary
of the wider media attention it has drawn. “In
the beginning it was really important to me that my
name was attached to the article,” he said.
“But at this point it’s like people
pretty much know that I’m one of them, so
what’s the difference?”
The difference is the right to freedom of
speech, said American Civil Liberties Union attorney
Christine Sun, who is representing the students.
“The names cannot be divorced from the context of the
speech,” she said. “Being open about
your sexuality is expression. It’s not something that
you have to hide. It’s not something that these
students should have to hide. It’s
disconcerting that this principal is saying, ‘You
have to hide your identity, or we can’t protect
you.’ If it’s true that there could be
some sort of reaction that would cause some harm to them,
the principal has the obligation to find a way to
protect them without censoring them.”
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