DEARBORN — A group of young journalists taking their school newspaper online for the first time suffered a setback last month when all of its web content was ordered removed after a controversial editorial on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was published.

Deanna Suleiman, R, works on the Edsel Ford High School newspaper The Bolt with fellow student journalist Rana Abdo and Kafah Hussein.  PHOTOS: Edsel Ford yearbook staff

Senior Deanna Suleiman, copy editor of Edsel Ford High School’s The Bolt, wrote a commentary that resulted in several messages sent to school administrators accusing Suleiman of being a supporter of terrorism, according to students and school officials.
Twice in the article, Suleiman wrote “I do not support Hamas in any way,” but her harsh criticism of Israeli and U.S. policy toward the Palestinians cost the long-running paper its right to publish its very first online edition.

“I just wanted my side heard,” said Suleiman, 17. “I wasn’t stopping anyone else from being heard… “I just wish they would agree that I have the right to say my opinion, even if they didn’t agree with what I said.”

Edsel Ford Principal Hassane Jaafar said he made the decision to order the article removed because it appeared on the website without being clearly marked as an opinion piece reflecting the viewpoint of a single writer.

Journalism students at Edsel Ford High School

“It was not highlighted clearly as an editorial,” he said. “It appeared as if it’s carrying the view of Edsel Ford High.”
All of the other articles posted from the paper’s January edition were also removed from the website.

New articles have since been posted, but Jaafar said Suleiman’s will not be allowed back onto the site.

“My position is — we move on,” Jaafar said.

He said the article generated complaints from “a mixed bag of a lot of people,” and that it was his job to ensure a positive atmosphere for the students to learn in.

“I just felt so sorry for the readers of the paper,” said senior Lauren Vallee, Editor-in-Chief of The Bolt. “I take free speech very seriously. The more information there is out there, the more people start talking.”

She said she didn’t find the article inappropriate when she edited it, didn’t anticipate a negative response and that it got her interested in an issue she wasn’t very familiar with.

“It actually just intrigued me,” she said. “It was almost like, ‘maybe I should really start paying attention to this.’ That’s the kind of thing we want in the paper.”

Keith Rydzik, who teaches journalism at the school and advises the student editors of The Bolt, was also caught by surprise by the negative feedback that came from some parents and alumni via school and district administrators.

“I thought that she qualified herself in a few places there,” he said about the article.

“She addressed the Hamas issue a couple of times. I thought we played it safe in qualifying that… We just looked at it as a commentary on a current event.”

Rydzik, who’s been overseeing the student-run paper for 13 years, said the article was removed only from the website and was not retracted in the actual print paper, where it appears in the editorial section.

“It’s there… The paper’s all over the building,” he said. “I’ve been told to continue business as usual, but we had to redo the website.”

He said the article was originally posted properly in the website’s editorial section, but that it was also featured on the homepage, without being clearly marked as an opinion piece that didn’t necessarily reflect the stance of the newspaper or the school.

“I wish it could still be there,” Rydzik said, “but honestly, I think that the district wants to move on. It’s a sensitive thing right now… I don’t know that it’s a battle right now that we’re strong enough to fight.”

He said Suleiman’s classmates rallied around her, seeing the conflict not as a political issue with two sides, but as a First Amendment issue.

“The last thing as a teacher you want is to have a writer shut down who showed a lot of courage,” Rydzik said.

He said one of the most frustrating things about the matter was that the feedback came through central administration.

“No one has emailed me… You ask yourself why doesn’t anyone write a letter to the editor and contact The Bolt. They just went right over our heads,” he said.

Vallee said Jaafar visited the class and spoke to the group about the decision to wipe out the website’s content and ban the article.

“He talked to the class about the whole issue. I think he’s a wonderful principal… but I didn’t want him to say that because I didn’t want to not like him,” she said.

“It upset me. If someone has a problem with what we write… we welcome letters to the editors… Nothing was brought to the advisor or the editors.”

She said a teacher at the school wrote a rebuttal to Suleiman’s article and that she hoped to publish it and even out the balance of opinion in the paper.

“I’d love to see opposing viewpoints,” she said.

But administrators didn’t allow any more articles to be printed on the issue.

“As far as we’re concerned, we’ve moved on,” said Jaafar.

But he did say students should continue to explore international issues and express themselves fully.

“We do want our kids to be global thinkers,” he said. They have to balance and support their opinions with concrete evidence.”