Principal Agrees Not to Censor Paper
The controversy over censorship at Marshall Fundamental High School in Pasadena has ended with an agreement that Principal Joseph Caldera will not require the student newspaper to submit articles for his review.
As part of the agreement reached Tuesday, the newspaper’s faculty adviser, Mary Ellen MacArthur, returned to her post. She had resigned last week.
After Caldera received complaints about articles in the last two issues of the monthly newspaper, he insisted that he have the final say about whether stories could appear in the paper.
An article in the Jan. 27 issue questioned whether students should be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance. An article in the Feb. 24 issue, written by a black student, was criticized as racially insensitive because of its use of dialect and colloquialisms.
Also as part of the settlement, MacArthur guaranteed that the newspaper will do its part in promoting racial sensitivity at the school.
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