Freedom Underground

Marijuana ought to be legalized, argues a writer in Insight, published by students at Los Angeles' Hamilton High. The "kill, kill, kill" spirit at North Hollywood High football games suggests a Nazi youth rally, claims the student-edited Participator. Such opinions are not precisely what most principals expect to see in their high school newspaper. In these cases, the authorities were in no position to object, since the articles appeared in off-campus publications. Catching the rebellious fervor of their college elders, high school students are turning out a rash of unsupervised and unauthorized "underground" newspapers to express what they claim are their real convictions.

No one knows how many such papers exist, since they appear sporadically, frequently flounder and die for lack of financial support or reader interest. Most of them are started by bright, active youngsters who are fed up with the blandness of official school papers. In Middletown, Conn., for example, High School Senior John Beatman began editing the Omelette--"It Doesn't Fry People, People Fry It"--because students have "no outlet to express any controversy." Beatman, who was once expelled for wearing a beard, collected a staff of a dozen teen-agers from three Middletown high schools with only one viewpoint in common: "They were dissatisfied with the status quo."

Ronnie Raygun. The underground papers flail away at any handy target. The Worrier was started by students of Los Angeles' University High after the official school paper, the Warrior, called anti-Viet Nam protesters "cowards." While the Worrier assails the war, as do many other underground papers, it seems equally alarmed over school rules against short dresses and long hair. There is something wrong with teachers, argues the Worrier, who are "more interested in their students' legs than in their minds." Belligerently political, the Worrier calls California Governor Ronaid Reagan's administration "the Ronnie Raygun Show."

Los Angeles' unauthorized Insight is edited by Barry Tavlin, 17, who quit his regular school paper because he felt it was too often censored. Inviting contributions from students throughout the city, Insight objects to adult complaints about teen-age tendencies toward freer sex, claims that grown-ups are the ones "who patronize topless restaurants" and "publish and read the sadistic sex magazines." When adults contend that sexy movies might "corrupt the minds of our youth," they imply "either that the adults have corrupt minds already or that it's O.K. to corrupt them."

Obscenities & Attacks. Unfettered by faculty advisers, a few underground papers sometimes contain childish obscenities and sophomoric attacks on school officials. Principals and teachers tend to deplore the underground journals, frequently ban them from school grounds or suspend the editors. Sometimes, however, the journalistic excellence of the papers wins out. In Needham, Mass., for example, after students at the town's high school founded the Razir, it quickly proved so worthy that officials let it circulate freely on campus. Coming up from underground, the paper is now sponsored by the city's Interfaith Youth Council, has a local Congregational minister as its adviser.

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