LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former high school journalist and the Nebraska High School Press Association sued Friday over a school district’s shutdown of the school newspaper after it published an LGBTQ-focused edition.
The federal lawsuit claims Grand Island Northwest Public Schools and its superintendent violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment in May when it closed the Viking Saga newspaper at Grand Island Northwest High School, which has about 700 students. The district later agreed to bring the newspaper back in digital form.
“It is hard to find words for what it felt like watching people who were supposed to be supporting our education instead silence us for covering issues impacting our lives,” Marcus Pennell, the former student suing the district, said in a statement. “I was crushed.”
An email message left with the school district’s superintendent, Jeffrey Edwards, was not immediately returned. Edwards last year called the shutdown “an administrative decision.”
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