After being kicked around the legal system for almost four years, Ochshorn, et al. v. Ithaca City School District, et al, the first-Amendment rights lawsuit involving The Tattler, has finally moved forward.

On March 24, Norman Mordue of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York partially denied the Ithaca City School District's (ICSD) motion for a summary judgment (which would throw out the entire case), and ruled on several of the charges the plaintiffs, eight former Tattler editors, had brought against the district.

The lawsuit was filed on June 3, 2005. Earlier that year, after a series of controversies surrounding material printed in The Tattler, Superintendent Judith Pastel, IHS Principal Joe Wilson, and Bill Russell, the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction at that time, imposed guidelines on the editorial board. The controversial material in question included an editorial critical of Wilson, a restaurant review viewed as racist, and a cartoon argued to be obscene, the last of which was censored by then-advisor Stephenie Vinch (who resigned in 2005).

Fearing that administrators could easily use the guidelines to censor The Tattler, eight of the then-editors, led by Editor-in-Chief, Robert Ochshorn '05, sued Pastel, Wilson, Russell, and ICSD for infringing on their First Amendment rights. The Tattler writers and staff subsequently printed the underground March, April, and May papers under the name The Issue, that were independent from IHS and ICSD.

Two landmark Supreme Court cases govern free speech in public schools: Tinker v. Des Moines and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Tinker papers are defined as forums for student expression, and are free from school regulation unless it is shown the material would substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school. Hazelwood papers are defined as pedagogical tools, or newspapers produced as a part of a class, and have significantly less protection under the First Amendment.

The plaintiffs insist that the rule of Tinker applies because The Tattler is not a school-sponsored newspaper, and that material printed in The Tattler does not bear the official approval of the school. The defendants disagree on both of these points. Currently, ICSD provides The Tattler with an office inside IHS and pays for all expenses related to the maintenance and operation of the office. Additionally, the district pays for the release time for the club advisor, and gives the club an approximately $1,200 annual boost used for postage, printing, and publication. This is enough to cover costs for the production of approximately one and a half issues. The remainder of the money used to produce issues of The Tattler comes from advertising revenue raised by the Tattler Ad Managers. Due to recent budget cuts, The Tattler will not receive the $1,200 boost next year.

Mordue's ruling placed The Tattler in a legal grey area, calling it a "limited public forum," which is more restricted than an open forum, which is generally free from content-based restrictions, but less restricted than a closed forum, which is closed to public expression. The Tattler currently opens its opinion section to submissions from all members of the Ithaca community. The following message is printed in every issue of The Tattler "As an open forum, The Tattler invites submissions of opinion pieces and letters to the editor from all members of the community."

Concerning the guidelines, Mordue stated that the district "failed to cite any case or provide any evidence that the guidelines" served pedagogical needs.

But Mordue agreed with the district's decision to censor the cartoon that depicted crudely drawn stick figures in a variety of construable sexual positions. He also threw out the editors' claims that prior review by a staff advisor, and banning the distribution of the March issue counted as violations of the First Amendment.

Ochshorn said in a press release that he was "pleased that Judge Mordue agreed with our assessment of the facts" and was "optimistic that the case will ultimately be resolved in our favor."

There are several possibilities for the future of the case. It may go to trial sometime later this year. Ochshorn said that the editors may appeal some of Mordue's decisions that ruled in favor of the district. Or, if events at IHS lead to another confrontation between The Tattler and ICSD, the current editors may ask that a judge rule immediately.

For more information about the Tattler lawsuit, visit http://rmozone.com/tattlerwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page.