Nenf/Principals waver in First Amendment support
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Principals waver in First Amendment support, unpublished research shows
LOWELL, Mass. -- America's high-school principals waver in their support of the First Amendment when faced with deciding whether to censor student newspapers, a survey has found.
Researcher Warren Watson of Ball State University will discuss preliminary findings from a just-completed survey of 100 principals during a panel on Saturday, April 7, at the kickoff event of the New England News Forum at the Wannalancit Mills in Lowell.
"We talked to 100 principals nationwide," Watson says in previewing the study findings. "The headline is that the principals, their attitudes have worsened and they were more prone to believe the First Amendment goes too far and more likely to say that censoring the student newspaper was something they were more inclined to do. They believe in free speech, 'but not in my school.' "
Watson says he thinks principals are reacting to a feeling that they must exert control over the school in part because of incidents like the Columbine shootings in Colorado.
"It's a sense that order is more important than free speech," says Watson. "Principals have a tough job and free speech gets squeezed out in this atmosphere of order and control."
Watson says he and fellow researchers at the University of Connecticut, working with grants from the John S. James L. Knight Foundation, are finding more cases than ever of free-speech surpression in schools, including current cases in Indiana and Wilton, Conn. In the Washington state legislature, Watson says, a bill to guarantee free speech in schools got through the House and then the high school protections were stripped out of a Senate version.
"We're trying to get a sense of what's in the head of these principals," says Watson. "They don't want to rock the boat, they are interested in the image of the school. Everything that would create a negative image they are prone to censor."
(Watson can be reached at phone: 766-702-8824)
