3-25-14 supporters of high school newspaper pack fdl school board meeting room

Supporters of  the Fond du Lac High School Cardinal Columns newspaper packed the Fond du Lac School Board meeting room Monday night to ask the Fond du lac School district to reverse  its new censorship guidelines on the paper.  A handful of those in attendance spoke at last night’s meeting including representatives of the Kettle Moraine Press Association which serves the Fond du Lac High School newspaper.  Former Fond du Lac state lawmaker and attorney general Peg Lautenschlager told the board she was on the school newspaper and editor of the yearbook when she attended Fond du Lac Goodrich High School in the 1970s.  "Victims are silenced and perpetrators control.  Now we have Ms. Kumar (newspaper editor Tanvi Kumar) who is silenced and we have a school district that wants to take control," 

Lautenschlager told the school board.  UW Oshkosh journalism professor Dr. Vince Filak told the board he doesn’t think they fully understand the overreaching and overarching problem created by these new guidelines.  "The administration can call this whatever it wants.  It can call it guidelines, suggestions or just tweaking.  But whatever cuddly and fuzzy term you choose to use the fact of the matter is this is censorship."