Hunter Students Threaten a Lawsuit Over Yearbook

Students at an elite public high school on the Upper East Side are threatening to file a First Amendment lawsuit if the school's administrators refuse to stop prying into their yearbooks.

Seniors at Hunter College High School, one of the city's most prestigious, said the administration is going behind their backs and stopping the presses to pull from the yearbooks a list of what the students consider benign jokes.

Fed up, the yearbook's editor in chief has enlisted the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union and other lawyers to fight what she calls censorship.

The seniors are also attempting to tap into the school's vast alumni pool, which includes celebrities like "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon and sports radio host, Max Kellerman.

"My concern is that they are going too far," the editor, Netta Levran, 17, said yesterday at a diner near the Upper East Side school. "It's not just the jokes but the bigger issue of losing something that makes Hunter unique."

The school is known for its high-quality and editorially independent student publications. Issues of censorship have been percolating for years, with students complaining that they need to be trusted to do what's right.

The issue with the yearbook, known as the "Annals," boiled over last week when Ms. Levran called the printer and was told that he was no longer allowed to talk to her. The printer said that production of the yearbooks had been halted.

School officials had asked the printer to pull a list of about 100 jokes that typically run alongside photos of the students clubs. In past years, some of those jokes teetered on offensive. Yearbook staff said they took special pains to be sensitive this year.

The staff had already agreed to axe a few jokes, such as one for the eighth grade math club: "Did you hear about the constipated mathematician? He worked it out with a pencil."

Last week, the adult yearbook supervisors stepped in and asked that even the jokes they had already approved - such as: "Origami Club: I fold" - be pulled.

Two yearbook supervisors and the school's principal did not return calls for comment.

A spokeswoman for Hunter College, which is affiliated with the high school, declined to discuss the conflict. "There are ongoing discussions between the high school students and the high school administration and we expect the matter to be resolved soon," the spokeswoman, Meredith Halpern, said.

Ms. Levran has enlisted the help of a fellow senior, Hope Reichbach, whose father is a judge in Brooklyn. Ms. Reichbach is also a plaintiff in lawsuit filed last month by the NYCLU claiming that the Department of Defense is violating students' rights to privacy by compiling a database of personal information for recruiting purposes.

Both women will be attending Wesleyan University in the fall.

"We see ourselves on a larger battlefield that transcends the specifications of this year's 'Annals'" they wrote in letter e-mailed to hundreds of alums. "We are contesting the advisors' actions largely because we are concerned for the condition of Hunter's student publications in future years."

A lawyer for the NYCLU, Jeff Fogel, said he tried contacting the school last week but his calls were not returned.

After learning that the yearbooks might not arrive until after the end of the year, Ms. Levran and Ms. Reichbach sat down with the administration, which agreed to restart the presses and pay for overtime to ensure that the 400-page "Annals" arrived by graduation day.

Students pay for the yearbooks with help from the Parent Teacher Association.

"There's no copyright infringement, no libel, no privacy invasion - it's high school humor. It is what it is. And that is not a sufficient justification for censorship," the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, Adam Goldstein, said. The Virginia-based organization consults with student publications across the country, including the "Annals."

"I don't think that this should go to court," Ms. Levran said. "I don't think that it needs to go to that level."

"A big problem in our school is that people give up," Ms. Reichbach said. "I think it's important to show the administration that people do care."