Student's right to free expression is under fire

Here's some fodder for this morning's water-cooler discussion: Blake Douglass, a senior at Londonderry (N.H.) High School, wants to pose with his shotgun for his senior yearbook photo.

School administrators said "no." Last week, a federal lawsuit was filed on Douglass' behalf, seeking an injunction so the photograph can be included in the student yearbook as well as a halt to the school's "pick-and-choose policy" of what photographs may be included in the annual.

An avid hunter and skeet shooter, Douglass viewed his desire to depict his hobby no different from that of students in previous years who have appeared in the school yearbook with their dogs, musical instruments, in-line skates and even a Ford Mustang. "I would look at it and think that picture with the car is pretty neat; I want to put my hobby in, what I enjoy," Douglass told the Associated Press.

Administrators contend that Douglass' photograph, him clad in a shooting vest, kneeling in a traditional sportsman's pose with a broke-open shotgun over his shoulder, wasn't appropriate for the senior portrait section of the yearbook. The school offered to publish it in the "community sports" section of the yearbook. Administrators said Douglass could appear in the senior section with trap and skeet shooting equipment, sans gun. Douglass refused.

Superintendent Nathan Greenberg said publishing a photograph of Douglass with a gun in the senior section could be construed as a school endorsement of guns. The 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School makes school administrators skittish about such things. From the perspective of a school administrator, that's perfectly understandable.

Unlike Columbine seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and one teacher before committing suicide, there is nothing surreptitious, illegal or sinister about Douglass' gun use. Hunting and skeet shooting are family activities. Douglass' father taught him to shoot when he was in grade school. His father also led his Boy Scout troop, teaching gun safety skills.

Principal James Elefante says holding a saxophone is "different" from holding a gun.

The school would have a strong case except that in previous years, student have appeared in the yearbook mugging with baseball bats, nooses and liquor bottles. Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act violations, anyone? School administrators sheepishly admit that, in the past, some photos slipped through that shouldn't have.