Tattler

The Tattler is the student newspaper of Ithaca High School. It is published 6-10 times a year, and has a circulation of about 3,000, with distribution occurring both in the school and in the community.

The publication has expanded greatly in the past 10 years, increasing greatly in number of pages, distribution outside of the high school, and expanding to include an online presence.

The Tattler was founded in 1892. Famous alumni include Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Carter.

The Tattler has traditionally been mostly student run, with a student editoral board and student writers working under the supervision of a faculty advisor (often but not always a teacher in the IHS English department).

Recently, the Tattler has been at the center of a controversy regarding censorship that has attracted attention from national journalism law experts and the local media.

In 2004 and early 2005, the Tattler published a number of controversial articles, most notably an article strongly critical of the Ithaca High School administration and a restaurant review that some considered racist. In response, in January 2005 the Ithaca City School District issued a set of guidelines, declaring the Tattler a school-sponsored publication, and giving the faculty advisor considerably greater power to edit or remove objectionable material. The Tattler student editors were outraged, feeling that these guidelines encouraged censorship and violated First Amendment rights, and transferred power from what was a mostly student-run organization to the school administration.

In the February 2005 issue, the first issue of the Tattler to be published after the new guidelines, the Tattler faculty advisor, Stephanie Vinch (an English teacher at IHS), found a sexually explicit cartoon in the issue offensive, and demanded that it be removed. The student editors refused to allow a “censored” version of the issue to be published, and appealed the decision to IHS principal Joe Wilson and ICSD superintendent Judith Pastel. Both Wilson and Pastel ultimately rejected the appeals, also finding the cartoon obscene.

In the midst of the controversy, Stephanie Vinch resigned her position as faculty advisor. With no faculty advisor and with the student editors at odds with the high school administration and school district, school publication of the Tattler ground to a halt. At one point Wilson ordered the Tattler office closed.

Almost all of the student editors were strongly in favor of continuing the publication, so the Tattler went underground, running out of editor-in-chief Rob Ochsohrn’s house. The student staff produced a complete underground March issue. The high school administration denied permission to distribute the underground Tattler issue on school grounds, because, among other reasons, it contained the same cartoon that was deemed obscene in the February issue. The March issue was distributed elsewhere in the Ithaca community and on a private website established by the editors.

In an attempt to compromise, the school district proposed a new set of guidelines to the student editors. These were vehemently rejected, with the editors claiming that the new proposals were actually even more restrictive than the January guidelines.

Meanwhile, nationally-renowned IHS math and computer science teacher Roselyn Teukolsky was named interim faculty advisor for the Tattler. The student staff worked under Teukolsky’s supervision to produce the June 2005 issue on school grounds. While there are indications that this went fairly smoothly, this was by no means the end of the conflict.

In June 2005, the student editors, lead by Ochsohrn, announced that they were suing the Ithaca City School District, Superintendent Pastel, Principal Wilson, and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Bill Russell. The suit alleges the school district violated the student editors’ First Amendment freedom of the press rights. The suit seeks that the school district guidelines for the Tattler be declared unconstitutional, and that the district be prevented from enforcing these or any similar guidelines. It also seeks unspecified monetary damages, lawyers’ fees, and other expenses. The students are being represented pro bono by prominent Ithaca attorney Ray Schlather. Neither of the Tattler faculty advisors, Vinch and Teukolsky, are named in the suit.

There is a strong difference of opinion regarding this subject. Some find this case to be a flagrant case of inappropriate censorship, violating freedom of the press. Some see the school district as guilty of unconstitutionally censoring dissenting, provocative, and controversial material. Others believe the school district is well within their constitutional authority established by Supreme Court Cases Tinker vs. Des Moines (1969) and Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier (1988), and is taking necessary action to prevent obscene and detrimental material from being distributed to the student body. Some see the student lawsuit as being superfluous, unjustly detrimental to the Ithaca City School District regardless of outcome, and possibly motivated by greed.

External links

Official Tattler website (http://www.ihstattler.com)