I spent 20 minutes or so on the phone yesterday with a reporter from the Aurora Sentinel, providing some background and insights into the Regis Jesuit censorship case. I tried to be as careful as I could, avoiding casting too much blame and emphasizing that the entire situation is a mess.
One of the last things I said was "No good deed goes unpunished," which is a classic line that proves to be true over and over. It's not that we should stop trying to "do good," but that we should be aware that the world does not always appreciate those efforts.
In regard to Regis, it is laudable that the school developed a robust publication policy that attempts to provide more free expression rights than most parochial schools might be comfortable with. In fact, that very policy is now being used to attack the censorship decision, which may be fair but also reminds us that an alternative might be a policy that makes administration or other adults the owners and editors of the "student press."
There is an old saying, that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press," and that seems relevant here. Regis "owns" the press, so to speak, while Constitutional government owns the public school press. The press should not publish just anything, of course, but journalists get the job of creating professional standards and enforcing moral and ethical codes.
As I have mentioned several times, non-public schools have opted out of the sorts of protections that many public school students and teachers enjoy.
Of course, that legal argument is not very satisfying, particularly if you are thinking that the goal of education should be to explore options and arguments and to become independent and informed citizens. That is more an ethical and philosophical question and the school is now in an awkward place, simultaneously claiming that Regis fosters free and independent thinking while drawing hazy lines that must not be crossed.
A commentary written by two Regis graduates in today's Denver Post emphasizes these ethical and philosophical points, and the article serves as proof the quality of their education (it's well-written and compelling) and as a counter to strictly legalistic arguments.
A fair question is "Did mere publication of one opinion piece, however mediocre in quality, threaten the entire institution (the entire archdiocese) to the point where it needed to be removed?"
As usual, the content of the article ended up being MORE widely distributed as part of the reporting. Most community members would never have noticed the commentary had it not been for the school censoring one of its students and removing TWO full-time employees.
I also recognize that there are many community members who are not fans of student free expression. And many mistakenly believe that anything published in a student publication is the ultimate responsibility of an adult and of the school.
Most people haven't spent much time thinking about the difference between official pronouncements and personal opinions, between informal and formal essays, and between media being "open forums" and, in the case of Regis, "limited open forums."
The co-writers of the Post commentary wish for Regis to support the same level of free expression as public schools, and suggest that their own experiences led them to believe that de facto they HAD those rights in their own time at the school.
Politics and religion have become more and more mixed together and this is not just a local trend. Regis Jesuit is not immune to the conflict. I just wish everyone had found ways to avoid such drastic casualties.
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