Wondering Heights of Teen-Agers

Recently I expressed some disappointment in a Supreme Court ruling that gives high school principals the right to censor high school newspapers “in any reasonable manner.”

I was referring to an essay by Burt Green of North High School, Torrance, in which he excoriated me for suggesting that teen-agers, interested only in themselves and their peers, lose their sense of wonder.

I said I was pleased to have angered young Green, his anger seeming to dispute my charge, and noted that under the new court ruling teen-agers have no right of free speech.

“I would hate for Mr. Green or any of his fellow students to think that I agree with this censorial opinion,” I said, “or that I was picking on teen-agers because I felt safe from any backlash. I would love to see myself vilified in student newspapers.”

John Kane of Rancho Palos Verdes takes issue with my disapproval of the ruling. The ruling, he points out, says that anyone using facilities owned by someone else, writing for a journal whose expenses are paid by someone else, does not have the unilateral right to say what gets printed.

“As a matter of curiosity, do all reporters and writers for The Times have the right of free speech, or do editors exercise control over what is printed?”

The newspaper, through its editor and its publisher, has the ultimate right to control its contents. The principal, or the school board, must likewise have control over the contents of a student newspaper, for which they are ultimately responsible. However, given the distaste of authoritative figures for any published criticism, I think it is dangerous to place the power of censorship entirely in their hands. Perhaps school districts could employ competent journalism teachers, familiar with journalism ethics and the laws of libel, who could exercise a preliminary restraint; then censorship from higher up would have to be demonstrably reasonable.

In the case before the court, a principal had censored stories dealing with teen-age pregnancy and divorce. It is tempting for a principal to censor such subjects because they make him uncomfortable, not because they are libelous, or intrude on privacy, or are simply in bad taste.

I myself was recently the subject of an enlightened editorial written by Gayle Isa, editor in chief for The Odyssey, a student newspaper published by the advanced journalism class at Grant High School, Van Nuys.

The clipping comes to me from Michael E. Main, a Van Nuys marriage, family and child counselor, with the comment: “The enclosed author (with the vigor and vinegar of youth) takes you soundly to task for your observations. Maybe there’s hope for that generation yet!”

Like Burt Green, Isa chastises me for my speculations on the loss of wonder in teen-agers.

“I very much resent the fact that Smith places all teen-agers into the same category, generalizing about us and our thoughts and ideas, and blaming us for the problems that he and his generation have failed to solve. . . .

“What makes Smith think that he was any more curious than the teen-agers who now populate the Earth? Were the majority of kids in his time more intelligent than the kids now? Are the majority of adults today more interested and involved than the kids are? It seems the problem is that our entire nation is suffering from an overdose of apathy, and he finds it easiest to use teen-agers as the scapegoat. . . .

“Few people, of any age, seem to care about the why and wherefore, but only the facts and figures that announce finance and wealth and success in the eyes of a money-conscious society.

“There was a great deal of truth in Smith’s charge that few people take the time to wonder. Yet the crime with which he charges teen-agers does not belong to that particular group of young innocents, but rather, to our entire society.”

I am happy that Isa’s principal did not censor that editorial. I can hardly sue the Odyssey since Isa did not set forth any untruths about me, and she wrote notably without malice.

Yes, there is hope yet.

There is some danger, though, that if such an editorial were written by a high-school editor about some position taken by a principal, it might never see the light of day.