Do you ever disagree with the policies here at West Catholic? Just about everyone does at some point. A group of students headed by senior Andrew Crane-Droesch decided to express their opinions and exercise their right to freedom of press by writing, editing and printing a newspaper of their own dealing with the problems they found in the policies of West Catholic. They were planning on printing articles that The Correspondent would not.

However, their plans were interupted when Principal Sister Mary Bur found out about the plans. She had Andrew and a few other students that he was working with on the production of the newspaper sign a paper giving her the right to edit and censor any articles that were to be put in the paper. If they refused to sign the paper, they would be suspended from school with intent to expel.

When Andrew came to see Sister Mary, the only article he submitted to her was a 5-page comic strip, which she felt was extremely vulgar and too tasteless to print. "I found it to be in poor taste and told them that it couldn't be printed in a paper representing West Catholic," commented Sister Mary. She also stated "The intention is not to stifle creativity but to encourage responsible reporting." The comic was returned to Andrew and he was told that none of it was acceptable for printing. "I was not surprised at all to be censored. Also the paper was meant to represent the views of the students of West Catholic, not the school itself. Expulsion is the only thing preventing me from printing this paper uncensored. I can't afford expulsion."

It is not definitely decided whether the paper will still be produced. Andrew is still waiting for a few articles from students to be turned into Sister Mary for review. He will include them in the ones to be reviewed and possibly printed in a new student produced newspaper.