“The Parker Weekly’s” November 27 MX on their trip to Dallas, and specifically the conversation about censorship within it, reminded junior Adam Keim of an idea he’d originally had during his freshman year. In the months since the MX, Keim has met with Upper School Dean of Students Chris Bielizna and Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen in an attempt to develop a new platform for student opinions and pieces.

“The idea is sort of a blend of ‘The Weekly’ and something more like ‘Phaedrus’,” Keim said. “It’s a very idea-driven publication. At present, I don’t see enough places for students to express their opinions, and work with ideas that may not be fully formed yet. So I want to make one.” The idea is that of a magazine-like publication to be printed from Keim’s house on printer-paper, which he would edit, distribute and produce himself.

For Keim, “The Weekly” MX highlighted recent problems with the paper. “Among many members of the faculty, staff, and student body, including myself, the general sentiment is ‘The Weekly’ used to be really an informative paper on what is going on in the student body,” Keim said. “But now, with the recent rise in censorship, it has become more of a brochure and publicity tool for the school.”

“We, unfortunately, cannot do whatever we want with the school’s money,” Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Parker Weekly’ Jessi Lieb, said. “We do not have First Amendment rights. Because a grant pays for us to print and distribute ‘The Weekly,’ we cannot say whatever we want; the administration has control over what we say. We try as much as we can to remain journalistically ethical within the restraints that we are given. We publish a multitude of ideas, we try to include diversity of thought, and articles we believe are very important to the student body we will argue with the administration about, and fight for. We stand up for our writers.”  

Keim’s vision for the paper is to publish anything that any member of the student body desires, regardless of format, as long as it meets a certain editorial standard — no libel. He sees his new publication as a forum for collections of poetry, news stories about events at Parker, philosophy pieces, raw student opinions, and anything else submitted to Keim, all written by students.

“I think the greatest part about this for me is I’m creating a platform rather than an idea, and it can go wherever the student body wants to take it,” Keim said. “I want it to become a place where ideas are brought up and challenged.”

The aim, Keim said, is not to represent a specific group of voices he believes is currently not heard, but to have a platform where any and all voices are heard, as censorship is not an issue. “The ability to censor perspectives is incredibly dangerous, and all perspectives that don’t agree with the censors end up being less represented,” Keim said. “They are also discouraged to write by those doing the censoring, or are scared to write because of the threat of censorship.”

Keim is budgeting about ten hours out of his week to be spent on the production of this publication. “At first it will be a double–sided, 8 ½ by 11 newsletter-style thing, which I can print myself for very little cost,” he said. “I think distribution will be a little sporadic, just when I have sufficient content. Although I don’t have a target publication date, it will start as soon as I have enough content to publish an issue. Right now I have a mission statement, and a couple ideas for initial articles, but that’s about it.”

In addition to Bielizna and Jurgensen, Keim has spoken to Upper School English teacher Cory Zeller, who teaches a senior elective on censorship, regarding his idea. “Zeller was an avid supporter of the idea, but Bielizna compared it to tap dancing on a landmine,” Keim said. “Jurgensen said that if I decided to go through with this, and decided to publish content contrary to the school’s mission statement, my enrollment would be at risk.”
Keim takes issue with Jurgensen’s statement. “In Parker’s mission, it states that the school aims to bring in new perspectives and to challenge existing perspectives,” he said. “That’s really what I’m trying to do here, and I feel like my work and my writing really aligns with the mission of the school.” Jurgensen stands behind her statement that the publication of anything detrimental to the school community, particularly slander, could put Keim’s enrollment at risk.

Bielizna said that Keim’s idea is risky and inadvisable. “We had a conversation in passing, and I told him he needs to be careful and tread lightly,” Bielizna said. “This is a situation where you want to be asking for permission, not forgiveness afterwards. It’s tricky waters to navigate.”

A number of students have expressed interest in contributing, and an even longer list are willing to contribute anonymously, according to Keim. Although he recognizes the need for the occasional article to be anonymous, Keim does not support the idea of having his paper be primarily composed of anonymous publications. “I think people should stand behind and be accountable for their ideas,” he said, “but if they really want to publish anonymously and it’s an idea I, as editor, think needs to be heard, I guess I could consider that.”

Junior Levi Sheridan has committed to help Keim with organization and layout as well as to be a regular contributor. “I think this is really important to do,” Sheridan said. “I want to have an actual newspaper, where we can express our genuine ideas and challenge some things you can’t in ‘The Weekly’. I think ‘The Weekly’ has failed as a school newspaper and has become propaganda for the administration, so we need something like this.”

“If Adam Keim or Levi has something to contribute,” Lieb said, “we would happily fight with Ruth Jurgensen to get their ideas published. They have not tried.”

At present, Keim does not have a faculty advisor and has no plans to get one. This is one way in which Keim’s publication will differ from “The Weekly”, and from “Phaedrus”. In addition, Keim’s objective is not to update the student body on the happenings of the school as The Weekly does, or to publish works of literary art like Phaedrus, although both are welcome. “I want to introduce a forum for honest and open student discussion, where nothing is censorable,” he said. “That doesn’t exist right now. This is why a third publication must exist,” Keim said.

Despite the time this publication will take to produce, Keim believes it is absolutely necessary to have a publication that is not subject to the administration’s approval. “Even just having the possibility of your piece being censored scares people off from writing real, genuine thoughts,” Keim said. “And that’s the opposite of what I want. I want something not subject to the administration’s approval whatsoever, something to foster student dialogue. I’ll publish conversations and responses.”

While Keim sees the prohibition of distribution of his publication at school as a possibility, and he said that he would then share it with the student body outside of school. However, Keim said he would continue in-school distribution until explicitly told by the administration to stop.