Sex In The Student Newspaper: A Punishable Offense
LatestAn Omaha high school newspaper was pulled — and a journalism teacher disciplined — because of it published articles that discussed teen sex. Another possibly anti-sex newspaper? The Harvard Crimson.
According to Michaela Saunders of the Omaha World-Herald, the offending section in Omaha North High School’s North Star bore the headline, “Life on the Sheets. Everyone has hormones, but learning how to control them is what matters.” Topics included “sex drive; masturbation; the district’s pro-abstinence human growth and development curriculum; the fun and risks of sexting; and how to put on a condom, using a banana in step-by-step photos.” Saunders somewhat censoriously notes that “there was no mention of the high prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases among young people in Omaha and no perspective from teen parents or from teens committed to abstinence” — although the banana photos were, of course, a demonstration of how to prevent STDs. North High’s principal blocked distribution of the papers because, according to district spokesperson Luanne Nelson, “the school has a ‘very diverse student body’ and that the material would have been offensive to some North students and their families.” It doesn’t seem that the paper’s content was racist, so perhaps the “diversity” Nelson refers to involves religious students — or maybe she’s just spouting buzzwords. Whatever the case, journalism teacher Hillary Aerts was apparently “disciplined” for allowing her students to write about sex (Nelson says she’s now “back in the classroom”).