Disclaimer: While I am a member of Gretna East Media, this petition is a personal initiative. I was not asked or pressured by GEM or any other party to create it, and it does not represent the views of Gretna East Media or Gretna Public Schools.

Read more about the incident here: nicholaskmitchell.com/writing/on-the-censorship-of-the-gretna-east-student-press

In January 2026, Gretna East Media (GEM) reporter Aidan McClaren published an editorial cartoon addressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis, a topic of significant national public interest. Gretna administrators forced GEM to remove the cartoon. When GEM then began reporting on the censorship itself, administrators wanted oversight over that article before it even hit the website.

Student journalists did the work. They researched, wrote, and created. Administration did none of that, and yet they alone decided what was publishable. This is not editorial oversight. This is censorship.

No student news organization can function independently when administrators hold unchecked veto power over its content. If Gretna East claims to value free expression and student voice, that commitment must be reflected in policy, not just in words.

We are calling on the Gretna Public Schools administration to:

1. Adopt a formal student press freedom policy establishing that editorial decisions belong to student editors and their faculty advisers, not to school administrators.
   
   
2. Reinstate the removed editorial cartoon and permit GEM to publish its reporting on student censorship without administrative interference.
   
   
3. End the practice of administrative prior review of student media content. Faculty advisers are the appropriate check on student journalism, not administrators.

These are not radical asks. They reflect the standards set by the Student Press Law Center and New Voices legislation adopted in over a dozen states. Gretna East students deserve a press that serves its readers, not its administration.