Two days before the print deadline, student journalists Ava Lenerz and Alex Lieberman learned their stories were being withheld from publication.
A post-it note stuck on top of the draft pages said they were under review after they were submitted to the principal for final proofing.
"We weren't really given a reason, and we weren't given much time to try and come up with a backup," Lenerz said.
Lenerz, a senior and the editor-in-chief of Pine View School's student newspaper, The Torch, had written an opinion piece criticizing the school board for changing its meeting time from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. The move, she said, diminished community voices.
The piece concluded with a call to action: Vote this August for the candidates who will preserve democracy.
Lieberman, a junior and The Torch's opinion editor, authored a news story about the school board passing a controversial resolution reaffirming the district's cooperation with law enforcement agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The resolution was symbolic and didn't change school policy, but hundreds of people showed up — many of them students who missed class and were spurred by the recent actions of federal immigration agents.
Lieberman said she knew the story was newsworthy and worked hard — making sure to highlight the right voices.
For a week, they heard nothing from the school. The students said they delayed the print deadline, waiting for feedback on the two pieces. But the paper ultimately had to be published without them.
"It was stressful," Lenerz said. "We're used to having to discuss stories and maybe make some edits, so that they can be published."
Before the articles are sent to the school administration, she said the typical editorial process involves several rounds of edits with a student editor, a separate copy edit and a final pass by their adviser, who is Lenerz's father, Chris Lenerz.
Stories have been rejected before, said Ava Lenerz, and it's been a regular source of frustration for her father. After more than a decade serving as the adviser for the student paper, he's resigning at the school year's end.
"So many people were crying. It was a really emotional class period," Lieberman said.
School principal claims bias
Word of the incident spread. Pine View alumni posted on social media about their own experiences with censorship. The Venice Gondolier, a twice-weekly newspaper, reached out to Lenerz, Lieberman and the school.
More than a week after the stories were withheld, Pine View Principal Stephen Covert met with the two students. He called them "impetuous" and "impatient" for going to the Gondolier and presented them with a 16-page analysis of bias in the two stories, generated by Artificial Intelligence.
Covert had also filled out a Student Publications Review Organizer, a district form outlining his concerns with the articles.
In it, he wrote that Lenerz's opinion piece is "inconsistent with pedagogical interests of the school" because it contained "strong criticism of the school board" and "political dissent or activism."
"While this is an opinion piece, it presents one-sided criticism and encourages political action, voting behavior and opposition to elected officials," he wrote in the file.
Covert wrote that Lieberman's story on the resolution, "only includes student voices opposing the resolution and presents no documented attempt to interview or include students who support the resolution."
He also noted that the story's coverage of a student walkout "could be interpreted as encouraging future disruption to school activities."
Lieberman said she reached out to students she thought might support the resolution, but didn't hear back.
A majority of speakers at the board meeting had spoken against its passage. Lieberman said, after the meeting, she interviewed board chair Bridget Ziegler, who proposed the resolution. Ziegler is quoted multiple times in the story.
Both students questioned the use of AI.
Lieberman said she suspected the platform might have "thought that the story in general was opinionated and biased because the quotes were."
"I don't think that AI knows our situation enough to be able to decipher what's bias and what's just part of the story," she said, "I think that using AI is just not appropriate in this situation when the student writers and the student editors spent so much time creating these stories just for it to be passed on to ChatGPT or Gemini."
Covert did not return requests for comment.
A final verdict
The school district denied that the stories were ever rejected, saying that they were undergoing a review process. After more than three weeks, Lenerz and Lieberman said the school is allowing their stories to be published on The Torch's website.
Minimal changes were made to their articles, they said. The school requested that Lenerz's opinion piece include a line clarifying the story does not reflect the opinions of the school or staff.
Marie McMullan is the Student Press Counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a group that advocates for First Amendment Rights. McMullan sent the school district a letter on Tuesday urging the school to reverse course.
"I'm happy to see that these stories are going to be able to come to the light, at least on the web form," McMullan said, "but the practical effect of this waiting period is that they weren't able to make that issue."
McMullan pointed out that editorial freedom for a school-sponsored publication differs from that of independent media outlets. The Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier rules that administrators can block stories if they do not serve the school's mission.
However, McMullan said, it does not give school officials a pass to suppress viewpoints they don't like.
"That set off a red flag – that the reason they were withheld was potentially viewpoint discriminatory," McMullan said.
Lenerz and Lieberman said after they learned the stories were put on hold, they appealed the principal's decision to the district. But they were told there was no official objection yet.
Last fall, Lenerz and other Torch members won school board approval for a revised student publication policy that aimed to protect students from scenarios like this one.
"Seeing it happen anyways, and to a worse degree than usual, just was really disappointing," Lenerz said.
A district spokesperson said, "Moving forward, the district will review protocols and approval timelines to help ensure timely resolutions and consistent application of approval processes."
Lieberman said she was happy about the outcome, but wasn't sure if it would've happened without "external pressure."
McMullan pointed to the broader political landscape, noting that "attacks on journalism nationwide have risen."
"We've seen that mirrored for student journalists, too. And so it's more important now than ever for schools to commit themselves to protecting student voices," McMullan said.
