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Published 10/12/07 in The Times-Herald
By W. WINSTON SKINNER
winston@newnan.com
Smoke Signals, the award-winning East Coweta High School student
newspaper, is on ice — the remaining copies of the last edition
impounded in the principal’s office.
Caitlyn Van Orden, managing editor of the newspaper, said the
September issue was distributed free to students, faculty and staff on
Sept. 25. Typically, a stack of copies of Smoke Signals remains in the
adviser’s room for weeks after publication. About 500 copies were left
of the September issue, but when students arrived in Ellen Thomas’
classroom on Oct. 1, those newspapers were gone.
A message on the board stated no more copies of the paper were to be
distributed. The following day, there was a message that no stories
about Halloween were to be written for the October issue. That message
concerned Van Orden, who had assigned stories for the October issue —
including a survey to determine how many ECHS students still go
trick-or-treating and a column on Halloween costumes.
Thomas told students they could write stories about Halloween for
class assignments but not for the newspaper. She also told them she was
no longer the newspaper’s adviser.
Van Orden said the September paper had generated interest — and some complaints.
There were complaints from several students about an opinion column
by Justin Jones that satirically suggested the bottom 25 percent of
fifth grade students on a standardized test be euthanized to remove
“the bottom of every class.” (See column at http://times-herald.com/media/20071012_SmokeSignals2.pdf )
The article was on a page labeled “opinion” and was modeled after
the classic satirical essay, “A Modest Proposal,” by 18th century
writer Jonathan Swift. Some readers missed the literary analogy and
took Jones’ writing at face value.
There also was criticism of Van Orden’s opinion column that
criticized a school beauty contest. (See column at http://times-herald.com/media/20071012_SmokeSignals1.pdf )
On Oct. 3, Van Orden and her mother, Janet, met with Principal Derek
Pitts about the situation. Pitts was contacted for this story but did
not respond.
The student editor said Pitts told her “the content was
inappropriate” — showing the editorial pages that included the columns
by Van Orden and Jones, a house editorial questioning the efficacy of
the ninth grade campus concept, and a column about Michael Vick’s
dogfighting charges by Chas Brown accompanied by an editorial cartoon
by Lindsay and Zach Schultze.
“He said he wanted the newspaper to be a positive, uplifting
publication,” Van Orden said. “He only wants things that show East
Coweta High School in a positive light,” Mrs. Van Orden added.
Caitlyn Van Orden said that Pitts also criticized the use of
profanity in the paper — mentioning the use of a quote — “It was hell”
— in a story about student Evan Bouchard’s summer boot camp experience
at Fort Jackson, S.C., during which four of his friends were killed.
Pitts also pointed to the use of “bastardizing” in Jones’ column.
When Van Orden offered to read the definition of the word from a
dictionary she had with her, he declined. The word “bastardize” is not
listed as “offensive” in “The Oxford American Desk Dictionary.” It
means to debase or corrupt.
This is homecoming week at ECHS, and on Thursday seniors had the
opportunity to dress as senior citizens. Caitlyn Van Orden instead wore
a black armband and a T-shirt with the message, “Maybe When I’m A
Senior Citizen I’ll Get My Freedom of Speech. I thought I was born with
it.”
