If she and her staff were disappointed that year by the lack of support from Neshaminy students , administrators and the community , they were heartened by the response to local , state and national coverage of this issue . Gillian alone received National Scholastic Press Association recognition , the Student Press Law Center ’ s Courage in Journalism Award , the Ethics In Journalism Award from the University of Oregon , the 2015 Native American Journalists Free Press Award and the 2014 Pennsylvania ACLU ’ s Civil Liberties Award .
By the end of the school year , administrators were following a lengthy new publications policy that the staff said “ threatens student journalists .” When the principal denied the staff ’ s request to publish , in the last issue of the year , a letter with the edited word “ R------- ,” editors left blank space instead of printing the letter they were told must include the word Redskin . The principal responded to this
THOMAS EVESLAGE
Thomas Eveslage is an Emeritus Professor of Journalism who taught media law and ethics at Temple University . For almost 20 years , he was on the Student Press Law Center Board of Directors and the Pennsylvania School Press Association Executive Board . He has advised high school and university newspapers and serves on the Quill & Scroll Foundation Board of Directors . A version of this article was published in November 2016 in the Gateway Journalism Review .
defiant act with punishment when the 2014-2015 year began , further cutting the newspaper ’ s annual allocation , suspending its adviser without pay for two days and removing Gillian as editor-inchief for one month .
As opposition persisted , Gillian said , the biggest toll personally was “ the time it took me away from reporting , writing and editing .” She was always under attack . “ Parents and students bullied me so much that I stopped reading my Facebook page ,” she recalls . “ And now it ’ s 2016 and I ’ m still getting comments about this controversy .”
The school board approved another new publications policy , agreeing not to discipline a student or editor for deleting the word “ Redskin ” from an article or advertisement . But the principal now has 10 days to review copy prior to publication and students .
“ Without a doubt , knowing that all copy goes to the principal for review inhibits students ,” Gillian said , and affects the timeliness of the newspaper content . Some touchy topics were addressed in 2015-16 — a story on Satanism and one on abortion / pro-choice . The administration reviewed the stories and made some edits before they were published .
For the past three years , the