On February 26th, organizations around the nation celebrate Student Press Freedom Day, which champions journalistic rights for students writing for high school and college publications. This year, the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), which hosts the nationally celebrated day, has marked the theme as “Resilience in Action.” Here, the goal is to champion the efforts student journalists engage in to push past obstacles like intimidation and administrative censorship as students tackle, especially when covering tough issues like LGBTQ+ divides and political protests that occur in and out of schools around the nation.
Student Press Freedom Day celebrates journalistic rights for students on February 26th, which is just two days after the anniversary ruling of the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines in 1969 – a major step forward for student expression. One main avenue for supporting student journalism is learning about students’ rights to publish media. Under the First Amendment of the Constitution and through Supreme Court cases such as Tinker, students are protected to express themselves as long as they do not significantly interfere with educative processes. Understanding these protections remains just one route to supporting student journalism. In addition, spreading the word on student expressive freedom and advocating against overstepping in legislative policy remain other viable routes for support.
Cardinal Nation‘s Previous Connections to Student Journalistic Freedoms
Last year, Cardinal Nation celebrated Student Press Freedom Day with an article, but also with continued pushes for student freedoms at MHS. The article was even featured alongside other student-written publications on the SPLC’s website to honor the date.
At the time, Cardinal Nation as a club was possibly on the brink of extinction, fighting to keep its funding and ability to promote student expression for all students that could not take a proposed journalism class (which now successfully exists and publishes in Cardinal Nation). Admittedly, the chances of keeping expressive freedoms and funding for the club in general looked increasingly slim.
Approaching one of the final board meetings of the school year, it was do or die. In short, the student journalists successfully advocated for building-wide student expression, which Cardinal Nation was pleased the entire school board eventually supported. Thanks to excellent speeches from Cardinal Nation authors Ellen Freemen and Zoe Barninger, and with consistent pushes from other student journalists to board members and to high school administration, the school board chose that funding and student expressive freedoms for the club were allowed to remain. Since then, the paper has continued to publish dozens of stories every month, including some editorial pieces that dig even deeper, utilizing these freedoms that students worked so hard to obtain in Mentor.
Thanks to this decision, this year Cardinal Nation is notably in a much better position than in years prior, but the newspaper continues to advocate for journalistic freedoms. Students and advisors have continued to facilitate open dialogue with each other and with school administrators to ensure each voice is heard, and readers across the community continue to support articles. Since the publishing of last year’s Student Press Freedom Day article, Cardinal Nation has amassed an additional 20,000+ views on articles, with some articles, including questioning of Mentor School Board Candidates and a photo essay on Lake Erie, passing into the multiple thousands of reads. Still, much more can be accomplished.
The Road Ahead: The State of Cardinal Nation from the Editor-in-Chief
In its current state, Cardinal Nation has some work to do. Whether it be covering more and more events and stories from across the district to recruiting more student authors, the paper has a lot on its plate. For the paper to prosper, I believe a few crucial steps need to be taken.
Primarily, increased promotion of the paper needs to occur from multiple angles. Increasing promotions, such as over daily announcements or with revamped posters around the school, can help drive interested individuals to reach out to the current staff or show up to our weekly Monday meetings. The more students we have writing, the more diverse our reach can be, and the more stories we can cover to highlight the ideas, achievements, and activities of Mentor students. Moreover, I encourage any student who has participated in or knows someone involved in the various extracurricular activities at MHS to reach out and offer to contribute towards a story highlighting the ongoings of that extracurricular.
I also continue to advocate increasing the rate at which articles are published in hopes it will encourage students to continue writing when they see their works being afforded the spotlight of publication to the entire community. As such, I encourage administration to continue to see the value in student expressive ideas, including creative works and personal interests, as well as chronicling activities as our mission statement declares. It is my hope that these articles, that I believe express the truest expression of voice of Mentor students, can always be featured on the front page of the paper, just like other articles relating to Mentor events. I would like to see in the future that students feel encouraged to keep writing, and that publication allows for the ability of readers to understand the thoughts as well as the talents of MHS students. Creating a strong balance of these fields will be the best way to ensure adequate understanding.
Lastly, for the readers at home, please continue to support the hard work of your student journalists. Every single day, student journalists continue to work, after homework, sports, and family events, to bring you as much news and ideas as they can. If a publication moved you this year, please reach out to the author if their contact information is available, or to Cardinal Nation directly across Instagram (@cardinaln8ion), or with an email to [email protected]. Personally, recent work by Michelle Frumker and Viktoriia Pavshock have amazed me, and I strongly encourage you to read their stories on their personal experiences in currently unfolding world conflicts. Having read nearly every article that has been published over the past two years and working directly with each author, I can tell you personally that this group is dedicated and supremely focused on writing with upmost academic rigor and professional courtesies, while also being some of the most talented people not only in the district, but beyond.
If you do nothing else, think about the lovely freedoms that you already experience in this nation, whether that be to roughly say, post, and especially think whatever you please. Though student journalists are not afforded the nearly limitless possibilities of modern media, we live in a fortunate time to be able to express our opinions and highlight the great things of our great school, which I am eternally grateful to our advisor, Mr. Couch, and MHS administration and Mentor School Board members for the ability to do. In saying goodbye, here is my favorite quote, to which I have no source for its origination:
