HERE'S WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

Hurray for the district officials that gave the directive to "withhold the story." Being a teen ager is a hard enough without giving fellow teen agers amunition to make a spectacle out of you. When I was in eight grade my mother made the newspaper for embezzlement. Our reading teacher would have us bring in newspaper articles on Fridays for "current events." Well, having your classmate read a story about your mom was one of the worst things that could have happened to a 13 year old girl.

I am sure the family of the defendent and his sister have been through enough, why would Mr. Tuley want to contribute to more pain and suffering for them. I feel Mr. Tuley is not fit to be a teacher if he even considers this to be o.k.. I think this episode would have been a great excuse to get rid of him completely.

Name Withheld
Wisconsin State Journal

I am responding to your question: "Should Turley have been removed as school newspaper supervisor?

My answer is: Yes.

Yes, they, the school administration, did the right thing because the teacher appeared to show no better judgement in the issue than did some of his students. That is especially so if it were true he had disobeyed a school directive on the subject. When Mr. Turley, himself, "grows up" maybe the school can give him another shot at it in the future. He needs to think about what he did for a season.

Part of what Mr. Turley is supposed to be teaching is when good judgement is to be used. When his employer had told him what to do and when he ignored them, if nothing else, he was guilty of insubordination.

If the town's newspaper, on the other hand, wanted to pick up on that story and print it, that's a different case. The student paper should have steered clear of the subject. There is a big difference between students in a newspaper class and trained investigative reporters who have some protecting provided by their newspaper's liability insurance if libel does become a factor.

The school administration did the right thing. School newspapers are primarily for the "practice" of and the teaching of specific skills. They are not for the discovery and the promolgation of "news." It is an important exercice for students to learn what goes into putting together a news gathering organization and how important the word discretion is in all we, as individuals, or as reporters, do in this life.

We had a situation with some similarity occur in management of the school newspaper at our local, small, 6500 student university last year. The "supervising" professor, I thought, had the poor judgement to approve the design of a front page full color layout showing a condom being pulled over a ripe banana and used as part of a (not very well supported or received by either the students, the school administration, or townspeople) student plea that the University start providing access to free condoms for university students who want to use them.

We do have a drugstore in town.

Socialism has not completely enveloped us yet, - - I hope.

Name Withheld

Salt Lake City, UT

I support the teacher's decision to publish the article. Teenagers (actually all of us) are exposed to violence in every form of media and entertainment. In particular video games and movies often show hundreds of murders per show with seemingly no consequences. They must be shown that murder is in fact a horrendous act with dire consequences--both legally and morally. Protecting them from this information does not serve their moral development. As far as the sister of the accused is concerned, I seriously doubt that withholding the article from the school newspaper kept the other students from knowing about it.

Sincerely,
Jane Oglesby
Garden Grove, CA

Regarding the article "Stop The Presses"

If Chad Tuley’s son was the boy that was facing murder charges, would Mr. Tuley have placed the article in the school paper? Would he have wanted his daughter to be exposed to possible embarrassment, stress, or unwanted negative attention during this very difficult time? What was Mr. Tuley’s motivation when he felt that this story should be placed in student newspaper? I am sure it got a lot of attention in the local editions and the student body was aware of the tragedy. The accused boy and his family are dealing with a crisis. The school paper is not the place to run an article that has been copied from local newspapers. The local press is trying to sell their information. The school paper should reflect leadership accomplishments – and plenty of praise for the students and faculty within the school. If Mr Tuley wanted to say something regarding this tragedy, wouldn’t it have been better to just print something simple and heartfelt like "The students and the faculty of ---- school wish to extend our prayers and support to the……family during this most difficult time. "

Sharon Koscoe, Mission Viejo CA

I read the article of the teacher taking off the school newspaper as supervisor in the Orange County Register. My name is Jim Teixeira of Orange County, California.

My bottom line opinion: the board of that school are nothing more than a bunch of trained chimps. I am SO tired of reading/hearing/seeing people trying to play the cover up game or better yet re-writing history to appease someone who may be offended by it. History is history and facts are facts. Print stories that are true and of concern for a community to keep people aware, and tell the rest of the people who disagree with that to wake the heck up and come out into the sunlight of the year 2004 and learn to live life as a very aware, educated and contributing factor to the community's well being.

Regardless of the circumstance the supervisor of the school newspaper is under the sanction of the school officials who are accountable to the school board elected by the community. The supervisor took action in direct opposition to his superior's directive; and with that he must accept the consequences of his actions. If you disobey the boss you get reprimanded because you are responsible to him. If you don't like the rules don't accept the position.

In regard to the content, the supervisor showed no consideration for the younger sister; and should be releived of his position for lack of judgement. Would he accept an article written about his little sister accused of prostitution?I think not. I suspect that ego got in the way of clear thinking and common decency.

MP

As a public school teacher with 38 years experience, I believe that the administration at Chad Tuley's school was definitely off the mark when they issued the directive to avoid publishing the story about the student accused of murder in the school newspaper.

When an incident such as this occurs, especially in a middle or high school, there is always rumor and gossip that runs rampant. In order to quell this, the administration should have issued a statement to the parents and should have allowed Mr. Tuley's students to publish the article with the known facts. In doing this, the sister of the accused murderer would have been hurt much less by the article than by the rumor and gossip that would otherwise surround her.

And what lesson is the administration teaching? The only lesson I see in your description of the incident is that all problems are solved through denial.  In denying that the problem exists and in attempting to cover up the problem through censorship of the newspaper, many more problems are thus created.




William Dyson

Georgia

Mr. Seglin:
I don't think we have enough information to answer this. For instance, why was there a directive to withhold the story? Was the sister consulted? If the sister begged them to not write a story about her brother, then Mr. Tuley definitely acted inappropriately.
However, if high school is still the seething hotbed of rampant gossip that it was when I attended, and I suspect it is, then a well-researched and thoughtful article could have helped dispel the rumours that plagued the poor girl as she tried to just get through the day. Again, I'd like to know where she stands on the subject.
Mr. Tuley was reinstated as a teacher, which I think indicates that he otherwise did a fine job teaching. He may have thought he was doing the sister and the school a favor. According to this article, at "http:// www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2585726&nav=CPFQTIN0" the students are planning a walkout and wearing t-shirts that say "Free Mr. Tuley." On the other hand, he may have just been trying to capitalize on a local tragedy to grab a little attention. I think the sister should have the most say in the matter.

Thanks,
Diana Thoren
Atlanta Journal & Constitution

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in the e-mails to The Right Thing: Sound Off section of this Web site are solely the views of the those who sent them. They do not reflect the views of Jeff Seglin, The New York Times Syndicate or The New York Times Company.