Students and First Amendment rights

This is in response to Melissa Jenco's piece on high school journalists and the First Amendment.

As a current student of public policy, specifically education policy, I find the debate over newspaper censorship an enthralling and complicated one.

It is not unreasonable for administrators to have concerns over their school's newspapers - it is a responsibility of the administration to pay attention to what is there.

It is a responsibility of school officials to make sure that budding journalists and engaged students have an opportunity to state their opinions and make their voices heard in a respectful and appropriate manner.

Further, Jenco notes the controversy over the Naperville Central student newspaper's inclusion of the "hard language of drugs".

I feel this was absolutely acceptable and necessary in the composition of this article. The unnecessary sanitizing of words, of a story, cannot possibly convey the same message as the original diction.

Jenna Silver

Elmhurst