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(Editors note: Joe Kirby of Sioux Falls has recently joined the South Dakota bogosphere with his blog SIOUXFALLSJOE.COM. Were sharing one of his posts here along with our wishes for success in his venture.)

As a lifelong Republican and casual observer of South Dakota politics, I have had a nagging feeling for several years that something just wasnt working right. The I heard reports from this years Republican convention and it started to sink in.

Our 20th century election system has enabled a small right-wing faction to have outsized influence on political dialogue in our state. Recognizing this, I think we would be wise to modernize our election system to include more South Dakotans in the process.

The Republican convention was reportedly a fiasco

The reports from the Republican State Convention this summer are concerning. A small, but effective right-wing element in the party got out their vote and nearly disrupted the plans of the complacent majority.

The incumbent secretary of state was surprisingly dumped for spurious reasons. The incumbent lieutenant governor almost suffered the same fate, but for some last-minute political maneuvering. And Marty Jackleys bid to return to the office of attorney general was also nearly sidetracked.

I imagine some conservative Republican office holders (Noem and Thune) are scratching their heads wondering how they suddenly became liberals.

Our election system was established in a different time, with different realities

Decades ago, the Republican and Democratic parties were all that mattered in South Dakota politics. Both could field electable candidates. While the Republicans were mostly dominant, the Democrats were certainly relevant with leaders like Daschle, Johnson, Herseth Sandlin and McGovern. Independents and third parties were not so important.

Over time, the two parties put themselves in charge of the states election system, to the exclusion of all others. That may have made sense at the time since they could keep an eye on each other and balance things out.

Eventually, the Democratic Partys influence in the state waned when national Democrats moved left. As the partys voter numbers in the state decreased, the number of independent voters increased.

Independent voter numbers on the rise

Today 49% of registered voters in South Dakota have chosen to be labeled as Republicans. That number is probably inflated by the fact that non-Republicans are motivated to register as Republican if they want their vote to make a difference. The sagest political advice you can get in South Dakota these days is regardless of your political philosophy, you might as well register as a Republican so you can have a meaningful voice in elections. Some are willing to do that, while others understandably refuse to compromise themselves.

Twenty-six percent of South Dakota voters have bravely registered as Democrats, knowing that means they can make little difference in selecting our elected representatives. And 24% have chosen to affiliate with neither party. That number appears to be low based on national trends.

According to recent Gallup polling, 43% of voters in the US now consider themselves independent. Young people especially are opting out of the choice between the two political parties they find objectionable.

Independent voters are second-class citizens in South Dakota

While the political landscape shifted in South Dakota, the mechanics of our elections did not. But no one seems to be challenging that. Most South Dakotans accept the legacy election system as is. It is familiar. We know how it works. And we know that we end up with Republican winners either way. But we should at least understand its shortcomings and what they might be costing us.

The two parties control South Dakotas election processes. The State Board of Elections runs the states elections. Six of the seven board members are appointed by elected officials from the two parties. None are appointed by other parties or by independent voters in the state.

On a more local level, county precinct superintendents and their assistants play a big role in South Dakotas elections. County auditors appoint them from lists submitted by the two parties. The states independent voters are left out of the process.

Independents are even discriminated against if they want to run for office. The signature requirements for their nominating petitions for some offices are much greater than for party candidates. This is not fair. (I wonder if it would survive a court challenge.)

Independent voters are excluded from the primaries

Political parties have decided that they should be able to exclude non-party members from participating in taxpayer-funded primary elections. As a result, 142,000 independent voters in South Dakota are often left without a meaningful role in the primary elections they help pay for.

As South Dakota Democrats became less relevant, they invited independent voters to participate in their primary. But that doesnt accomplish much when the most important election is usually the Republican primary.

A minority of registered voters has absolute control

In recent years we have become a one-party state. With less than half of the states registered voters, Republicans enjoy a monopoly on statewide races. They occupy all three federal offices, plus the office of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and more.

Republicans also win 90%+ of legislative races. Most legislative races in the state are uncontested or minimally contested, which leads to the observation that if you didnt get to participate in the Republican primary, you had no voice in choosing your state representatives.

Our legislature wastes time on less important issues

You might think I, as a Republican, should like all this power for my party. But as I mentioned earlier, odd things are happening in our Legislature because of it. I think we are all better off if all South Dakotans get to participate equally.

Now that Republicans are in control in our state, the most interesting debates are between Republicans. Lately, conservative Republicans have been challenged from a small, vocal group that is further right politically.

That has led to lots of fussing about seemingly irrelevant stuff like who gets to use which bathrooms. Wed be better off if our legislators would focus on issues effecting more of us, like economic development, healthcare, prisons and housing.

Democracy is a fiction in South Dakota

Our representative democracy does not appear to be working well in South Dakota. Significant groups of South Dakotans have little or no representation or even involvement in the election process. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is showing signs of dysfunction.

At the same time, disenfranchised groups of voters sometimes resort to petition drives to try to enact laws like expanding Medicaid and legalizing marijuana. Issues like that seem well suited for a more balanced legislature.

All South Dakota voters should participate equally

All of us would benefit if more South Dakotans had a meaningful role in our elections. I would like to see the Legislature update the election administration system to allow independents to have an appropriate role. I would also like to see the Republican Party open its primary to independents to broaden the partys base of supporters and reduce the influence of the vocal right-wing minority.

Joe Kirby is a fourth generation South Dakotan and lifetime Republican. He is a retired businessman who has taken an active role in election reform since helping modernize Sioux Falls city government in the 1990s.

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Sioux Falls blogger and lifelong Republican Joe Kirby writes that democracy is a fiction in South Dakota The South Dakota Standard - The South Dakota...

Editor's Note

A version of this editorial first appeared in the Aug. 18 edition of The Inquirer and Mirror, of Nantucket. It is republished with permission and modified for our local readership.

In the summer of 1943, as World War II raged, E.B. White wrote a small piece in the Notes and Comment section of the New Yorker magazine on the meaning of democracy. One item on his list of things that described democracy was a letter to the editor.

We could not agree more. It is as true today as it was back in 1943 that the letters to the editor section of the opinion pages is the marketplace of ideas. The very act of putting your thoughts in logical and readable order, keeping civil while you disagree and signing your name to it somehow pushes letter-writers above the social media fray of angry opinions.

Recent letters to the editor are like a cross-section of Berkshire concerns: a police chief flagging the need to invest in our youth; comments on the new contours of the annual Josh Billings RunAground; reader reactions to Eagle columnists commentaries; impassioned discussion of a residential tax exemption proposal in Stockbridge; praise for a Shakespeare in the Park production at The Common in Pittsfield.

The coming days opinion pages could very well have a series of letters arguing the opposite sides of all these issues. That is the whole point. Everyone gets their say. Nobody has to agree with us. Everybody, however, has to make their argument in a civil manner and sign their name to it.

And officials might be well served if they read the letters as the voice of the people. The controversial North Street redesign, the debate over where to house Berkshire women inmates, the localized effects of economic and political uncertainty all have been addressed thoroughly this summer in letters to the editor. Meanwhile, a massive influx of letters pertaining to a heated election season show a healthy share of Berkshire voters are engaged with these pivotal races that will shape the countys future. It also demonstrates a citizenry ready and willing to take up that great democratic tradition of civilly convincing their neighbors in the public square. Our leaders ought to be listening to those voices especially those seeking election or reelection to public office.

One type of letter is a reminder that life in a small community can often be different than life in other places: the letter of thanks. These simple thank-you notes for somebody who has helped the writer out in one way or another, often in some small way that did not seem small to the writer, are a reminder of how one should act and that life is not always about rabid political arguments.

E.B. White wrote his essay almost eight decades ago. It is easy enough to say it was a different time, but it is a helpful reminder of how we might still see ourselves reflected in the idea of democracy.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time, he wrote. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasnt been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad.

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Our Opinion: Letters to the editor are democracy in action - Berkshire Eagle

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled decisively for the forces of democracy last week, setting the stage to invalidate illicitly proposed amendments to the state constitution. This immediately creates a remedy for voters targeted for exclusion by legislators the courts already determined to be illegitimately elected due to racially gerrymandered legislative maps.

Beyond North Carolina, the ruling provides a blueprint to advocates for democracy to challenge similar laws in their own states courts, where many more voting rights cases will be tried following the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling that partisan gerrymandering is beyond the reach of federal courts.

This case, North Carolina NAACP v. Moore, challenged two of the amendments proposed by a legislature elected from districts the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional racial gerrymanders where redistricting maps are drawn to favor one party over the other before the amendments were even proposed. After being ordered to draw new legislative districts, the North Carolina General Assembly proposed six amendments to the state constitution, two of which were challenged in this case. One of the amendments added a photo ID requirement for in-person voting to the state constitution. The other reduced the maximum state income tax rate from 10% to 7%.

North Carolina is on the front lines of the battle between democracy and antidemocracy. The state has seen racial gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering, unconstitutional voter ID laws, constitutional amendments proposed to entrench an unconstitutionally empowered legislative majority, a House of Representatives race rerun due to fraud, and a surprise special session to rewrite the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of the states government. The state legislature has found itself in court so often, it appealed to the Supreme Court to have counsel other than the democratically elected state attorney general.

That all stems from the 2010 midterm elections, when millionaire businessman Art Pope, the states own low-rent version of the Koch Brothers, funded a massive effort to win marginal state legislative seats to control the upcoming redistricting process.

The resulting gerrymander has consistently handed legislative supermajorities to Republicans elected with only minority support from voters. You see, the will of the people of North Carolina frequently favors the Democrats, and so the antidemocrats in the state Republican party work tirelessly to prevent the popular will from controlling the political process.

None of that should happen in a democracy.

Black and Brown people targeted by racially manipulated maps designed to weaken their voting power shouldnt still have to fight for their right to vote year in and year out. Yet, antidemocratic forces would rather rely on the old habits of segregation than come up with an inclusive political message. There should be a remedy when antidemocratic legislators abuse the democratic process to entrench their power; the people should have a means of clawing back their sovereign power other than simply voting out the bad actors in an unfair contest.

Ultimately, the North Carolina Supreme Court did not rule on whether the amendments were validly enacted; they were remanded for further consideration. But the process of getting to that result was a master class in political law from one of my favorite movement judges, Anita Earls. Prior to joining the bench, Justice Earls spent two decades as a civil rights advocate in both government and nonprofit organizations.

While the trial court accepted the NAACPs arguments, ruling the two amendments void due to the unconstitutional composition of the legislature that enacted them, Earls took a more nuanced approach. She grounded her ruling in the equitable principle that when someone holds a position illegitimately, it may not be practical to replace them immediately, and so courts tend to treat their official acts no differently than if they were legitimate. But because its an equitable principle, the court needs to consider whats fair and allowing legislators elected using racist maps to entrench a racist voting restriction in the state constitution is anything but fair.

As consequential as it is, Earls opinion is a narrow one. While the amendments in question may be challenged, their validity must be evaluated on equitable principles. A constitutional amendment proposed by an invalidly selected legislature is only subject to challenge if it either entrenches the political power of its proponents against democratic accountability, perpetuates the ongoing exclusion of some category of voters from the political process, or intentionally discriminates against a category of citizens who were also discriminated against in the election of the illegitimate legislature.

This doctrine is likely sufficient to defeat the voter ID amendment but may not be broad enough to defeat the income tax restriction, if the matter even heads back to the trial court now.

In his dissent, Justice Philip Berger Jr. invoked two federal constitutional provisions, providing a clear invitation for an appeal to the Supreme Court. And while his claim that this matter is a political question courts cant review rings hollow, his constitutional arguments may give the courts Republican supermajority enough ground to interfere.

The Supreme Court is acutely aware the U.S. Constitution is not a democratic document. The defense of such an appeal almost relies on the hope that Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the opinion in Shelby County that dismantled the Voting Rights Act, will accept the argument that Earls opinion is entirely a matter of state law. This hinges on whether hell be able to convince one of his conservative colleagues to respect states rights when it actually benefits marginalized people.

We should recognize Justice Earls opinion for what it is: An extraordinary remedy for the extraordinary act of attempting to amend the state constitution to solidify partisan gains. While ordinary legislation can simply be reversed by a later legislature elected fairly, constitutional amendments are more permanent, and courts must be able to void them when they are illegitimately enacted toward illegitimate ends.

Brandon Hasbrouck is a Washington and Lee University School of Law assistant professor who researches and teaches in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, movement law, and abolition. Find him on Twitter at @b_hasbrouck.

Originally posted here:
Checked and balanced: North Carolina Supreme Court clinches a win for democracy - The Boston Globe

Conspiracy theorists are unlikely to enter Parliament. Photo / George Heard

OPINION:

This week's anti-whatever protest outside Parliament was a fizzer.

The march was trailered with much hand wringing that it might spiral into the occupation that disfigured Pipitea in February and March this year, or at least descend into the violence and aggression of the camp's last days - or even the kind witnessed at last year's anti-vaxx marches.

Sadly, the crowd was peppered with misogynist slogans directed at the Prime Minister, but it would be misleading to suggest these are particularly novel. One slogan - "ditch the bitch" - has been used on multiple woman politicians in this country, and I'm sure abroad.

This doesn't excuse it, but it would be misleading to suggest the venom of this protest is in any sense peculiar to our own time.

New Zealand has always had a lunatic fringe. Members of John Key's office will tell stories of fairly violent and conspiracist anti-TPP protesters trailing the prime minister through the regions.

There are perfectly good reasons to dislike the TPP (and its successor the CPTPP), but it is not, as one marcher proclaimed, a "conspiracy to commit treason".

We have changed as a country since the TPP marches. The conspiracy fringe does appear to have grown, and it appears to have grown more violent.

The Parliament occupation is remarkable because, while deluded, paranoid, vulnerable, and violent people have always existed here and abroad; we've never seen so many of them all at once, and so empowered to bring their worldview to the heart of power (Wellington is not the heart of our democracy, by the way - call me sentimental, but the heart of democracy, in my view, is disbursed, like a benign horcrux, across everyone privileged enough to enjoy the franchise).

You can't come away from watching the excellent Fire and Fury documentary, or read the equally excellent reporting from across the media of the people at the heart of this movement and conclude they don't present some kind of threat, first to themselves, and then to public figures, including politicians and the members of the media.

The most frightening aspect of the protest wasn't the slogans, but the fake court that convicted all MPs of crimes against humanity, but this wasn't frightening because it represented a threat to the real judicial system, but because of the potentially sinister and violent motivations of the people associated with it.

There's a tendency to draw the wrong lesson from these sorts of events. One of the fears, articulated earlier this year and capitalised upon by Brian Tamaki on the forecourt on Tuesday is that this fringe will enter Parliament and disrupt the political system.

This seems overblown.

Based on the turnout of the 2020 election, a new party would need to win a seat or poll 145,953 in the election to enter Parliament. The combined tally of every party that could be considered roughly conspiracist, (including the New Conservatives who scored 42,600), totalled just under 90,000 votes.

The only way into Parliament for these parties, as Tamaki knows, would be an Alliance-style tie-up.

This isn't unique.

Jami-Lee Ross self-consciously tried to emulate the Alliance with Advance New Zealand, and sought parties to join him. Unsurprisingly, fringe groups who cannot even agree on basic science, found it difficult to come together under a single leader. The two parties that went into Advance NZ, Jami-Lee Ross himself and Billy TK's Advance, eventually fell apart.

The Alliance is remarkable because it was so unique. It held together in no small part thanks to the skill and personality of leader Jim Anderton - and even then, the party couldn't survive long in Parliament into the new millennium.

It would take a miracle of political organisation and turnout for these groups to unify and make it into Parliament. The notion of them entering Parliament is a fun hypothetical but one better suited to the pub than the newspaper.

There's a sad irony that this debate is playing out at a time when New Zealanders might be talking about lowering the barriers to parliamentary representation. One of the Government's election reviews is currently looking at lowering the 5 per cent threshold to 4 per cent (still high enough to block any formulation of conspiracist parties from entering Parliament in 2020).

The debate about lowering the 5 per cent threshold is one worth having (as is lowering the voting age).

Since the election of Donald Trump, much ink has been spilled agonising over how "it" could happen here. We jump at every Trumpian shadow cast by our politicians - no matter how fine those shadows may be, or how infrequently they are cast. We wilfully neglect the immense electoral, political, and cultural differences between here and the United States.

Much less time is spent thinking about actual lessons that might be learned from overseas and applied here. One of the problems in the United States has not been that the wrong people get elected, as is the case with Trump, but that too few people vote and their electoral college system distorts the value of what (relatively) few votes are cast.

One lesson worth drawing is to think more about reducing the threshold for entering Parliament, or to consider the case made by the Make It 16 campaign to lower the voting age by two years.

One of the areas where the conspiracy fringe is most likely to obtain elected office is in local government, where apathy and low turnout lower the barrier for entry. It could be worth asking whether local government elections should be reformed so that local body elections more closely resemble general elections, drowning out the lunatic fringe with the electoral equivalent of the denominator effect.

There's a risk we learn the wrong lesson from conspiracy theorists. They are a clear danger to themselves and others, but there's no evidence yet they pose any threat to our democracy or the smooth functioning of Parliament.

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Thomas Coughlan: Conspiracy theorists not yet threat to democracy - New Zealand Herald

Northwest Public Schools administrators eliminated its journalism program in June in what some former students and press freedom advocates call an act of censorship.

While working on the school year-ending issue of the Saga newspaper, staffers had little idea its student-written content would mark a 54-year-old publications abrupt end. The edition included student editorials on LGBTQ topics, along with a news article titled, Pride and prejudice: LGBTQIA+ on the origins of Pride Month (June) and the history of homophobia. Other articles explained registering for classes, highlighted achievements by the Future Business Leaders of America chapter and told the story of a group of siblings adoption.

Northwest Public Schools board Vice President Zach Mader said that in the past, I do think there have been talks of doing away with our newspaper if we were not going to be able to control content that we saw (as) inappropriate.

People are also reading

He cautiously explained the apparent reason for the Sagas demise.

The very last issue that came out this year, there was a little bit of hostility amongst some, the school board member said. There were editorials that were essentially, I guess what I would say, LGBTQ.

On Sunday, May 22, a Northwest School District employee emailed the Grand Island Independent press and advertising teams to cancel the companys Northwest Viking Saga printing services. Notification of staff and students of the programs elimination came May 19, according to the employee. The June issue was printed on May 16.

The Northwest employee said in the email they were informed the (journalism and newspaper) program was cut because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue's editorial content.

The Saga staff was also reprimanded in April 2022 after publishing preferred pronouns and names in bylines and articles, according to students. District officials told students to use only birth names going forward.

The Saga had been published since 1968, thriving in its final year. Northwest student media, including Saga staffers, earned third place at the 2022 Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) State Journalism Championship. Individual winners included Emelia Richling, Emily Krupicka, Audrianna Wiseman, Kiera Avila and Treasure Mason.

District officials have declined to give an exact date when the decision to eliminate the program was made and why. Northwests 2021-2022 journalism teacher declined interview requests for this story.

It sounds like a ham-fisted attempt to censor students and discriminate based on disagreement with perspectives and articles that were featured in the student newspaper, surmised Sara Rips, legal counsel for ACLU of Nebraska.

Mader said of the student newspapers final issue: There (were) some things that were

The school board member paused, thinking.

He continued: If (taxpayers) read that (issue), they would have been like, Holy cow. What is going on at our school?

Dan Leiser, president of the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education, said of the stories in question, most people were upset they were written, though he didnt specify who most people consisted of.

Leiser questioned whether eliminating the paper based on editorial content in this case, the June 2022 issue mattered.

If 90% of people say the (stories) shouldnt have been written in the first place, they weren't happy with reading it in the newspaper Im not talking me, I'm talking high school students why do you think this is newsworthy?

Former Viking Sage newspaper staff members Marcus Pennell (left) and Emma Smith (right) display a pride flag outside of Northwest High School.

The freedom for print media to determine its own editorial content is constitutionally protected, a result of the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling on Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974).

The decision by the administration to eliminate the student newspaper violates students' right to free speech, unless the school can show a legitimate educational reason for removing the option to participate in a class that publishes award-winning material, said Nebraska Press Association attorney Max Kautsch.

Kautsch specializes in media law in Nebraska and Kansas.

It is hard to imagine what that legitimate reason could be, he added.

Emma Smith, Sagas assistant editor in 2022, said the staffers tried to have their fingers on the pulse of what Northwest students were talking about.

Rips said, Student journalism teaches students how to discern and investigate, build effective work based on verifiable facts, and policies.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil liberties group advocating for student free speech. Lindsie Rank, a FIRE student press counsel, said even if legal, censoring student expression will almost always run counter to democratic values.

As (Supreme Court) Justice (Stephen) Breyer pointed out, Americas public schools are the nurseries of democracy, Rank said.

Initially, Northwest Superintendent Jeff Edwards said the district was looking at some different curriculum. Edwards said principals, the director of teaching and learning and he are the primary decision makers in axing or adding classes.

Jeanette Ramsey, Northwest Public Schools director of teaching and learning, confirmed Edwardss referral, saying that yes, she was the primary curriculum decision maker, assisted by a team of people.

However, when the Sagas elimination was brought up, Ramsey said, firmly, I was not involved in that decision at all. I was zero involved in that decision.

Ramsey said the decision to end the Saga and related journalism class was made between PJ Smith, the principal, and Dr. (Jeff) Edwards, our superintendent.

Smith directed questions about the journalism programs elimination to Edwards.

The process to change programs and curriculum is not necessarily governed by administrators, said David Jespersen, communications administrator for the Nebraska Department of Education. School boards have the autonomy to exercise different procedures, Jespersen said.

Some districts are heavily involved and would need to grant approval; many districts let the superintendent handle it. As far as the state is concerned both are fine it is a local decision.

The Northwest Public Schools Board of Education had little if anything to do with the Sagas elimination, Leiser indicated.

From my standpoint, (from) a board standpoint, Dr. Edwards filled me in on the situation a little bit. He didn't tell me everything. I guess I'm trusting the way he's handling it. He's got it under control.

The front page of the June 2022 issue of the Viking Saga.

After Northwest Public Schools regular-session school board meeting on July 7, The Independent again asked Edwards why the Saga and its class had been cut. He was also for the first time presented with the alleged basis for the programs elimination: the Pride Month issue.

He repeatedly responded only that it was an administrative decision, but did not address the reason.

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel for Student Press Law Center, said ending student newspaper programs is becoming a more common form of censorship. The center is a nonpartisan group that advocates for student journalism press freedom.

You can't censor a student newspaper you no longer have.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit has been working directly with the Sagas most recent staff on potential recourse.

By far, the number one thing that will get student media censored is a story that criticizes the school or that administrators somehow think makes them look bad, Hiestand said.

First Amendment rights in public high schools were affirmed in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in 1969. The school argued a 13-year-old student could not wear a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War.

In the Tinker case, the Supreme Court said that students and teachers don't lose their First Amendment and freedom of expression rights at the schoolhouse gates, said Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. We believe that that should apply to student journalists as well.

In the Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) journalism students at Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis, Missouri, wrote stories about teen pregnancy and the impact of divorce on their peers. The principal deleted pages containing those stories prior to publication without notifying students.

Because the student newspaper was sponsored by the school, the Supreme Court ruled the principal was not violating the First Amendment.

Referring to the Hazelwood case, Harris said, The Supreme Court created a carve out of First Amendment rights, specifically applying to student journalists, which allows school administrators to censor students work for any quote-unquote, legitimate pedagogical reason.

Censorship in the name of Hazelwood is a vague standard, but it allows for a large amount of discretion by administrators who apply it rather broadly, Harris said.

But, she added, When student journalists are censored, we are teaching them that facts and truth even when they are uncomfortable are not acceptable.

On his birth certificate, former Saga staff member Marcus Pennells first name is Meghan. Marcus is a transgender man. In the June 2022 Saga, Pennell had his name reverted to Meghan in his byline.

The (name) thing was the first big blow, he said.

Pennell said he has been subject to adversity because of being transgender, but hearing directly from the school administrators was different.

It was the first time that the school had officially been, like, We don't really want you here, Pennell said of his regulated byline. You know, that was a big deal for me.

Alison Gash, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, said deadnaming calling someone by their birth name as opposed to their preferred name is a form of erasure.

Gash is an academic expert in United States courts, gender, race, sexuality, same-sex marriage, constitutional rights and public policy.

The pointed targeting of erasing somebody's pronoun, of erasing somebody's gender is erasing somebody's identity in such a hostile way, she said. It can't be read as anything but I don't value you.

Hiestand said that until recently, few controversies over using preferred names in student media have been reported to the Student Press Law Center.

The concept of banning preferred names was new to Michelle Hassler, an assistant journalism professor at UNL.

I think we're getting into some additional rights here, Hassler said, noting institutions like the Associated Press recognize the practice. Hassler is also the executive director of the Nebraska High School Press Association.

Hiestand said he was unaware of any formal U.S. Department of Education opinions concerning preferred names.

I can say with certainty there is no law that would require the use of a legal name instead of a preferred name, he added.

Emma Smith graduated in 2022. She said her class was informed the decision to ban preferred names was made by the Northwest Public Schools Board of Education.

Students, including Emma Smith, said district Policy 6391 was referenced when an administrator handed down the districts preferred name decree.

The policy advises teachers to teach only age-appropriate controversial topics, present them with objectivity (do not include your own biases) and not expect students to reach an agreement, according to documents on the district website. The documents do not define controversial.

The policy also states, Remember that the policy of the board is designed to protect you as well as your students from unfair or inconsiderate criticism whenever your students are studying a controversial subject.

The school board last reviewed and revised the policy in December of 2017. In an email, Edwards said no public records exist when asked for documentation concerning 6391s development.

The Independent submitted a series of public records requests to Northwest Public Schools in July, asking for information relating to the elimination of the journalism program and the possible reasons for its end.

In response, the district said the majority of those requests couldnt be fulfilled until Sept. 1, with costs ranging from just shy of $3,000 for an initial request and $1,140 for a narrowed-down request.

Harris seemed dubious. (SPLC is) very troubled by what's been going on in the school district, and the lack of transparency and the censorship that's taking place.

Someone in administration needs to be really clear about the reason (the Saga was eliminated)... they are getting really close to violating some First Amendment rights, Hassler said, though she said she hasnt heard an official reason for the elimination of the Saga and its related class.

Hassler said, That's even more problematic: the reasoning isn't out there.

In the realm of higher education, the same scenario would violate the First Amendment, Rank said. For high school journalists the answer isn't as clear-cut.

The FIRE attorney added that the Hazelwood ruling calls for a legitimate instructional reason for regulation.

I struggle to think of a legitimate educational reason for punishing student journalists for discussing Pride Month, but the bar can unfortunately be low, Rank said.

At this moment in our democracy, Harris said, we need people asking hard questions and reporting facts.

Rips, ACLU of Nebraskas LGBTQIA+ counsel, said simply having an environment like the Sagas newsroom can have a big impact.

Kids need to feel safe when kids are bullied knowing that the school has their back, knowing that their parents have their back can make things like that more tolerant, Rips said.

Gash said, There's a compounding effect, being a young, queer person, having to confront adults who are supposed to be on your side, in your corner, helping you to grow and develop to be a valued member of our society.

Emma Smith is firmly planted in her classmates corner.

Seeing them go through that, especially after being able to go by (preferred names)... having it taken away from them was really upsetting.

In an editorial, The Dont Say Gay bill: Making students existing controversial, Pennell wrote:

...most LGBT students are scared to even show up to class most days. If the concern was really for the quality of education for our children, why not ban all discussion (concerning sexuality) if we arent saying gay, why can we say straight?

It was printed in the final issue of the Saga.

The end of the Northwest Saga is not the first time student censorship issues have cropped u

Jessica Votipka is the education reporter at the Grand Island Independent. She can be reached at 308-381-5420.

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'Nurseries of democracy': Northwest student journalism elimination a 'Saga' - Grand Island Independent