Four student journalists have been recognized for their courage in defending freedom of the press during their senior year at Lawrence High School.
The Student Press Law Center named Natasha Torkzaban, Maya Smith, Morgan Salisbury and Jack Tell as finalists for the 2024 Courage in Student Journalism Award. The four students, who graduated in the spring, challenged the district’s use of artificial intelligence surveillance software and reported on it in LHS’ student newspaper, The Budget.
Budget adviser Barbara Tholen said the students impressively understood and articulated their rights to a group of administrators. Standing tall, they kept the public informed.
“The idea of courage in student journalism, I think, really fits us, because I think it did take a lot of courage,” Tholen said. “And I think it was intimidating for them at times, probably unnecessarily so.”
According to an SPLC article announcing the recognition, the SPLC praised the four students’ “inspirational and persistent efforts to oppose technologies in their school district that surveil on and interfere with their press freedom rights.”
The software, Gaggle, uses AI to sift through information tied to the district’s Google Workspace — including Gmail, Drive and other products — and flag content it deems a safety risk, which can include allusions to self-harm, depression, drug use and violence.
Torkzaban, Smith, Salisbury and Tell in April convinced the district to remove their files from Gaggle’s reach, arguing that it violated their freedom of press rights. They remained concerned, however, about the software’s threat to all students’ privacy.
They reported on the issue extensively in The Budget. Informing their peers resulted in hundreds of students and staff wearing black armbands to school, referencing the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines. They then outlined advice for fellow journalists who find themselves in similar situations.
The district in July renewed its contract with Gaggle for the second of three years. The district has touted the software primarily as a mental health resource, in hopes of catching warning signs of self-harm.
The students said a district administrator during a meeting in April accused them of valuing their press right above the mental health of their peers — a claim they rejected.
“I think these were kids who people who knew them, even a little bit, as we do in the building, knew what absolute rock star advocates they were for the mental health of their peers but also just so brave at standing up for their rights and articulating why the First Amendment matters,” Tholen said.
Gaggle is complicated, she said, because it “doesn’t respond well to boundaries,” such as attempting to remove its scope from a single Google Drive folder, for example. It issues alerts from student account interactions — not just on district-issued devices.
Tholen said the future of Gaggle in Lawrence schools is up in the air but that the district has been responsive to recent issues she’s identified, and she predicts journalists will continue advocating for protections.
The key takeaway for the students surpasses the newsroom, she said.
“I always think it’s a really dangerous lesson for kids to walk away from a high school journalism program thinking that it would be OK for the government to have this type of role in student speech,” Tholen said. “At the very basic level, they stood up for their rights, like you cannot compromise our ability to report effectively, and having reporting products exposed widely, that compromises that. And so I think it’s hugely important what they did.”
Tholen said the students frequently called SPLC for advice during their work in the spring, and SPLC regularly supported their arguments against Gaggle. The organization serves as a resource for young journalists and beyond to thrive in their fields.
First place for the SPLC’s 2024 Courage in Student Journalism Award went to student journalists at Mountain View High School in California. They pushed back against their district administration for attempting to censor their investigation into sexual harassment at school.
Learn more about the SPLC at splc.org. Keep up with The Budget’s work at lhsbudget.com.
The student journalists were not available for comment prior to publication time.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Latest Lawrence news:
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
