School board set to fire teacher over controversial article

Woodlan Junior-Senior High School journalism teacher Amy Sorrell was removed from her position as newspaper adviser due to a conflict that many are saying began with an opinion article about tolerance of homosexuality.\nSophomore Megan Chase, 15, said she wrote the article in support of a friend who revealed to her that he or she was homosexual. \n“There is also the religious aspect of the argument, where people say that if someone is homosexual, they are automatically sent to Hell,” Chase wrote in the Jan. 19 opinion column. “To me, that seems extremely unfair. So what are homosexual Christians supposed to do?”\nAccording to the East Allen County School Board’s Feb. 20 minutes, Chase addressed the board but was told that East Allen County Assistant Superintendent Andy Melin would speak to the staff privately “as that would be a better forum for discussion rather than at a board meeting.” \nSorrell said when Chase asked the school board to be put on the next meeting’s agenda regarding the matter, Stephen Terry, the school board president and a local reverend, declined her request. \n“Reverend Terry just basically said that this really wasn’t the place for it,” Sorrell said.\nOn Thursday the East Allen County School Board approved Sorrell’s request to hold a public hearing that will be held prior to a school board meeting set for May 1 to decide on whether she will be terminated, Sorrell said. The date for the hearing is not yet decided. \nSorrell said she received a letter from the administration that listed several reasons for her termination, which included insubordination, placing East Allen County and Woodlan Principal Ed Yoder in a negative light, changing the curriculum of the journalism class and failing to publish a revised editorial policy.\n“We complied with the prior review, so I’m not quite sure where the insubordination charges are coming from, because we had complied,” Sorrell said. “As far as printing the policy, I’ve run it by several legal people and they all say it was unconstitutional, so I’m not going to print something that’s unconstitutional.”\nOn Jan. 29, 10 days after the article was published, the Tomahawk newspaper staff was placed on “prior review” by Principal Ed Yoder. The staff’s policy granted the administration permission to view the newspaper before it was published – a policy that had never before been enforced, Sorrell said. \nChase said a new editorial policy was written by Melin with no input from the students. The proposed policy declared Yoder as the publisher of the Tomahawk, and denied the right of the adviser or students to seek legal assistance. \nThe staff refused to print the proposed policy and instead of publishing another issue of the Tomahawk, they reviewed First Amendment lawsuit cases, Sorrell said. \n“The clear implication here is, this principal is saying he can decide anything that will go into the paper and remove anything he doesn’t like, and that plan simply is just not the law,” said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, which is providing Sorrell with an attorney. \nGoodman said the high school can legally issue prior review, but believes it is educationally wrong. \n“Even though they’re reviewing it, they can’t censor it as a result of that prior review simply because they dislike it,” he said. “You will find no journalism education group out there that actually encourages or supports administrative prior review.” \nAlong with the Student Press Law Center, other journalism and educational groups have come out in support of Sorrell and her students. The Indiana High School Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the American Civil Liberties Union. \n“They are proposing a system that is more reflective of journalism the way it’s practiced in China than the way it’s practiced in the United States,” Goodman said, “and that’s a very disturbing lesson for a public school to be teaching.” \nMultiple calls and messages were not returned by Melin, Terry and Yoder.