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Student, principal share 1st Courage in Student Journalism award

By Christy Mumford Jerding

04.14.98

Click here to listen to archived free! radio webcast of this event. Real Audio/Real Player and 28.8 Internet connection recommended.

	Photo by Scott Maclay
	Dan Vagasky

The story led to a confrontation with school officials when they spiked the story; it led to his newspaper adviser's leaving her job; it led to a federal lawsuit filed by Vagasky against his school administration.

But Vagasky's yearlong struggle to, as he says, "just tell the truth" also led to his receiving the Newseum's new Courage in Student Journalism Award today.

Vagasky and Phillip F. Gainous, principal of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., are the first recipients of the award, to be given annually by the Newseum for determination, despite difficulty and resistance, in exercising First Amendment press rights. School administrators are selected for demonstrated support, under difficult circumstances, for the First Amendment rights of their schools' student media.

In an award ceremony, Vagasky, now a freshman at Otsego (Mich.) High School, said he couldn't have continued his fight to publish the story without the support of family, friends, teachers and "people I don't even know."

The controversy began when an eighth grader shoplifted on a school-sponsored ski trip. The school newspaper, the Bulldog Express, prepared a story on the incident based on a police report, withholding the student's name because she was a juvenile.

But school officials pulled the story, even while they acknowledged it was accurate. Otsego School Superintendent James Leyndyke said in an interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette that his opposition to the story did not "have anything to do with how well the story was written," but rather that it reflected poorly on the school district. "I view any piece of information that comes out of the schools as our opportunity to put our best foot forward. We would not pay ... to show what we do poorly."

Officials later shut down the newspaper, and Diana Stampfler, the newspaper's adviser, was forced to take a job elsewhere after her responsibilities as adviser were taken away and her hours were reduced.

With the help of a lawyer, Vagasky filed suit in federal court. An out-of-court settlement awaiting school-board approval would mandate that no story could be rejected simply because it might portray the school district in a negative light.

Photo by Scott Maclay
Phillip Gainous

Gainous, convinced that the program was done professionally and responsibly, "went along for the ride" when students called news conferences and staged protests of the superintendent's decision.

"I learned a lot from these young people," Gainous said. "They are serious journalists. Sometimes adults are frightened when students appear more intelligent than they are. Instead of putting restrictions on them, we should be sure to help them handle their responsibilities and give them the freedom to fly."

The Montgomery County School Board eventually sided with Gainous and the students, and the program was broadcast on the county cable system's educational channel in May 1997. But the school has drafted new regulations that would establish a lower threshold for censorship than the previous county policy. Students continue to challenge the new rules.

Charles L. Overby, chairman and chief executive officer of The Freedom Forum, told Vagasky and Gainous' students that "this is not the last time you will have to deal with a conflict with authority. But what we've seen here today is a marvelous example of responsibility, courage and dignity."

The Courage in Journalism Award includes a $5,000 check for Vagasky; Gainous received $5,000 to support journalism at his high school.