05/18/2023 UPDATE: Conestoga High School Principal Amy Mesinger met with The Spoke editorial board on May 11, alerting them that the school would no longer censor the student journalists’ content and allow the senior destinations map as intended. The map is set to print on June 5.
The Student Press Law Center has been working closely with The Spoke to resolve this issue and commends the principal’s decision, though the school should never have threatened to censor the students in the first place.
The SPLC team will continue monitoring threats to student press freedom in Pennsylvania, and working with the brave student advocates in the state — including The Spoke opinion editor Shreya Vaidhyanathan and news editor Ben Shapiro — to pass New Voices legislation that would protect The Spoke and other PA student journalists from this type of censorship in the future.
“The reversal of this censorship is a victory, but it should never have happened,” SPLC Executive Director Gary Green said. “No student journalist should have to balance finishing their homework and studying for tests with fighting to reverse censorship of their hard work. SPLC is proud to stand alongside these students as they bring New Voices protections to Pennsylvania, and to have the backs of all other student journalists facing censorship.”
05/09/2023 SPLC and partners demand PA principal reverse censorship decision: The Student Press Law Center worked closely with Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Journalism Education Association and the Pennsylvania School Press Association to send a letter to the principal or Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania admonishing the school’s recent censorship of the student newspaper, The Spoke, and demanding they allow the students to publish the senior destinations map as intended.
Read the full as a PDF.