Smallville Torch

Volume 50, Issue 50 | 2001

KWAN CRUSHES FREEDOM OF SPEECH

by Lana Lang

It’s the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. It’s one of the defining freedoms of our great country. It’s freedom of speech. And Principal James Kwan just crushed it.

Last Tuesday, SHS’s principal James Kwan suspended Torcheditor in chief Chloe Sullivan because she wrote an article entitled “Smallville: Mutant Capital of the World.” Kwan’s reasoning was that “Miss Sullivan was not reporting on relevant school events and was passing the Torch off as her own personal tabloid.” Unfortunately for Smallville, Chloe’s “speculations” are a lot closer to hard news than they are to “tabloid” journalism.

If our high schools are incubating microcosms meant to prepare us for “real-world America,” then our administration is playing the part of a leader slightly to the right of Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. The Torch is our press. Students don’t have to read it if they don’t want to. That’s also one of our freedoms. If SHS’s administration fails to act as a responsible example of authority in line with the government of the United States of America, what message does that send us as students learning how to be productive citizens?

We here at the Torch choose to exercise another right guaranteed to us in Amendment One of the Constitution. We hereby petition our administration to redress the grievance of removing Chloe Sullivan from her post as editor in chief of the Torch. We want her back. It’s our right to demand it. It’s your responsibility to do something about it.

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