The controversy in the Neshaminy School District over the high school newspaper’s use of the word “Redskin” is back.
The Neshaminy School Board Policies Committee met Tuesday night and approved a revised policy that would stop the editors high school school’s newspaper, The Playwickian, from banning the use of the word Redskins. The policy will next go to the full board for a vote. The vote will likely happen at the May 6 meeting, committee member Irene Boyle told LevittownNow.com.
Advertisements
District officials said the use of the word, which is considered by some a racial slur against Native Americans, has to be printed by the school paper. District Attorney Mark Levin said the revised policy blocks newspaper staff from editing the word. He said the staff can only prohibit the use of the word when it is used in a offensive way, which district officials have the legal authority to determine. On that note, it was announced the writers and editors could print disclaimers near articles where the word was used and they could also editorialize about the word.
“If my son wants to write something proud about being a Redskin football player, the students on that paper, under law, have no right to tell him he has to take the word ‘Redskin’ out of there. That’s what the law says,” committee member Stephen Pirritano said. He added that newspaper’s writers don’t have to use the word but they can’t block others from using it. Levin agreed.
Gillian McGoldrick, the student editor of the award-winning paper, said the students are “just editing as editors do.”
Advertisements
District officials disagreed. They said editing grammar is one thing, but editing out the word Redskins violates the rights of other students.
“I don’t want to be publishing something that is racially offensive. I don’t want to do that. That’s what our decision is about,” McGoldrick said, referring to the vote the newspaper’s student editors took in fall that banned the use of the term “Redskins.”
Advertisements
“What you want to do is censure the other students’ rights,” Levin said during the meeting.
Neshaminy teacher and newspaper adviser Tara Huber said she doesn’t edit the word and lets the student’s decide whether it should appear in the school newspaper.
Levin said he didn’t see it necessary at this time for the district to pull together a list of banned words for the paper.
Advertisements
“The Playwickian is part of curriculum, not the Philadelphia Inquirer,” Pirritano said following comments from Levin that The Playwickian is a publication of the school district.
The students have talked in the past about bringing in their own lawyer to fight the district’s decision to allow the word in the newspaper.
