Why I'm Here and Where I'm Going
How editorial censorship, my sheer curmudgeonosity, and bold-faced lies told to my face have led to the creation of this Substack.
On May 3rd, 2022, I created this Substack during a free period in high school with the intention of writing something on it eventually. At the time I was also a writer for my school’s newspaper, the Valor Dictus. Our motto? “Speaking Bravely to the Robinson Community.” Little did I know that I was about to test that motto past its breaking point.
I had some disagreements with the editorial staff in the past, especially around what they chose to publish as news and how opinion pieces were categorized, but because they were new to the job, and they always ended up publishing me I was fairly sure that they could eventually be cajoled into doing the right thing (most of the time). I had been able to publish a few generally grouchy, if not outright conservative/right leaning pieces in the past and, as I had put my work on the content planner, I was fairly sure that there wouldn’t be any problems arising from my work, which was soon to delve deeper into controversy than it had ever before.
There were, however, some reasons for concern. In one notable instance, the editorial staff had published under the news category an article, “The Future of Abortion in America,” which suffered from clear bias, poor facts, and violations of the ethics policy. I had written almost 2,000 words to respond to, correct, and add context to the article, but the piece wasn’t published because it would “hurt the feelings of its author,” who was also on staff. Eventually, after several arguments, I managed to extract a concession. When the article was published online it would be corrected, and a disclaimer would be added to explain that the print version was published in error.
That online publication never occurred1.
On May 10th, the first of a pair of articles –the culmination of almost a month of research–was published to the website. It was titled “Whose Children are They?” and can be found on this Substack or on the Valor Dictus site. The story was inspired by a worksheet that had been distributed to me at the beginning of the year by one of my teachers that asked whether the pronouns provided to the teacher on the form should be used when communicating with the student’s parents. I wrote in opposition to the practice and the VDOE document that effectively mandates it. I wrote against schools lying to parents and the only hint that I was against “affirmative care” was at the very end in an author’s note promising a second article explaining why some parents have problems with “gender-affirming” care. After some editorial pushback, in which I managed to demonstrate that my facts were accurate and my quotes were real2, my article was published in its entirety.
I knew almost immediately that I was in deeper water than I had expected. For one thing, I sent the article to a group of friends that I had sent every other publication to and was immediately kicked from the chat3 for creating an "unsafe space". Hours later, I discovered that the author‘s note had been removed without my notification, allegedly because the style guide did not allow opinion pieces to have such notes4.
More shocking to me than that was the visit my principal paid me a few days later as I was in the library. He informed me that he had received an email from a student asking if my work was allowed to be published. The student was informed that the school newspaper was an independent newspaper and could distribute information as it liked, in accordance with the first amendment to the Constitution. However, the principal also noticed that the image in the article was of a worksheet distributed by a teacher at the school. He asked who it was, and I, not seeing any reason why I shouldn't, informed him that the teacher who distributed the sheet was Kristin Mohan, and that she was my 4th period teacher.
A few days later, my article was hit by the removal of its image by the editorial staff under the advice of the class advisor, Christopher Moore. Once again, my article had modified without anyone notifying me, and this time I would fight.
At first, I asked Mr Moore where my image was, and he told me in no uncertain terms that the image was in violation of copyright because it was a picture, full stop, of someone else's work and was therefore removed. This was a lie. At the time however, I didn’t know this and proceeded to attempt to resolve the situation by simply arguing the merits of my case. After claiming that the article was fair use, I was shot down and told to go research the topic. I proceeded to access the training provided to all journalism students, and then the more detailed page from the Student Press Law Center. (Which was interesting but did not change my mind about whether the image at issue was used legally. It actually bolstered my understanding and my case.)
By this point I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere as Mr Moore had reached the point where he claimed that taking a picture of someone else’s work was a violation of copyright, under any circumstances. The resolution that he proposed was that I take the exact same words and simply create a near identical visual which I refused to do on the grounds that it was an absurd request and a mockery of copyright law. By this point steam was leaking out of my ears and any conversation had been rendered pointless. I submitted a request for legal assistance to the SPLC5 and tried to think happy thoughts.
Then I went to lunch.
The following period was perhaps the most surreal of my life. Having entered my classroom, which was right across the hall from the journalism room, I was notified that the class would be taking an off day so that the teacher could get some work done. I took this time to form a more measured response to the claim that the image was not an application of fair use and announced my intention to visit Mr Moore. My teacher gave me permission to go across the hall, after a conversation that went something like this:
“Where are you going?”
“Across the hall to argue with Mr Moore.”
“Why don’t you just change it so that he takes it?”
“It’s a matter of principle”
“You’re too young to have principles.”
“Well, I’m going to go over there and try to get some.”
I entered while a class was in session (unsurprisingly he wasn’t teaching), and marched up, ready to confront Mr Moore, when he told me that he had just been emailing me6 because I needed to learn how to disagree less angrily7, which I took umbrage with. I responded pointedly that the information he had given the editors about copyright law was wrong and that he was at fault for any incorrect decision made by them regarding the topic. He then proceeded to say that the editors had actually chosen to remove the image for perhaps reasons other than copyright infringement.
So I asked a simple question: "Did you or did you not talk to the editors about whether the image was in fair use or not?" To which he responded that he hadn’t necessarily told them anything about copyright and that they talked about several things. The conversation devolved from there8.
“Did you or did you not talk to the editors about copyright law?”
"Not necessarily."
"Did you or did you not?"
"Not necessarily."
"Did you or did you not?"
"Not necessarily."
“I can do this all day9.”
Eventually he admitted that yes, he had talked to the editors about whether the image was fair use and that if I wanted any change to occur, I was going to have to ask them.
Frustrated but not yet discouraged, I proceeded to email Devon, the editor in chief with an email explaining in comprehensive detail why fair use was applicable in the case of my email. The response I got was surprisingly conciliatory, and shockingly absurd.
She informed me that the inclusion of the image made the teacher unhappy and that the story would be better served by the use of the same words on a different sheet of paper. I pointed out in my response that there is no substantial difference between the two options and that if I truly believed that it might improve the mood of Ms Mohan I might even consider doing so, but I failed to see how it could help. I also mentioned the origin of the attack (the principal presumably informed her of my use of the image) and suggested that attacking the image was merely an attempt to damage the effectiveness of the article.
On May 23rd she responded and told me that:
Whether or not the teacher agrees with the content of your article, she still did not give you permission to use her picture
At this point I caved and created a new image using photoshop and the original image as a reference. Shockingly enough, this was deemed adequate, and the story was updated in short order with the new image.
Meanwhile
Throughout this whole controversy, I had been working, reading, and learning. The initial article, whose image had caused me so much trouble, needed its sequel fast because I was rapidly approaching the point of graduation, after which I would no longer be able to publish what I had been researching and writing for over a month10. I finally completed the story during the last week of classes and notified the editors that it needed to be reviewed.
The editor-in-chief proceeded to view the document several times over the next few days, making no comments on it or providing editorial input. It was a long article and I assumed that she was intimidated by its size. As it turned out, that wasn’t the problem. I had created a dangerous weapon, noxious to the whole of the school, capable of poisoning the very air if it were published.
My article, my opinion piece, was too biased in its writing and was unsupportive of the “LGBT+ community”. It’s also worth noting that neither of the other two editors had read the piece when I received this email. I was unhappy. I responded. It mattered not. Here are some highlights:
I'm curious to know what facts I should include to "show the other side of [my] argument" and wonder if maybe instead forcing my article into one of your own, you should write something yourself including that knowledge and publish it as well.
My article, because it does not agree with conclusions pushed by those in the LGBT community, appears to have been deemed too offensive to print in a newspaper that describes itself as an "open forum" where "all are invited to share their opinions" unless, apparently, the opinion piece displays an opinion and goes against dominant narratives11.
I believe that it is not the job of a school newspaper to support any community, in advertising, reporting, or opinion pieces. It is our job to report that facts as they are in reporting and publish opinion pieces that reflect the varied viewpoints of the Robinson community.
If you truly believe that it is Valor Dictus policy to support the LGBT community, I suggest that you include that in the editorial policy
All I ask is that if you don't publish my article then you change the current motto of Valor Dictus from "Bravely Speaking to the Robinson Community" to something that reflects current editorial stance. I would suggest something like "Parroting the Things You're Supposed to Say" or "Cowering is the Corner, It's Fun Come Join Us" or pretty much anything else that calls to mind the canisters of compressed fear found in Monsters Inc.. It's a simple ask12
I was not happy. It was also at this time that I discovered that the replacement image that I had created had also been removed. Having asked why that was, I received one final email from Devon explaining, in very clear terms the problem with my article, and where my image had gone:
My article apparently threatened the “LGBTIA+ community [sic]” and thus was not published, and my image was removed by Mr Moore who evidently possessed more editorial control than he had previously admitted. My suspicion is that it was Mr Moore who suggested that Devon stop responding to my emails, but I can’t say that for sure. I sent off an email to the other editors in a sort of last appeal, but it came to nothing, and I forgot to save the exchange. The long and short of it was that I didn’t think the publication of a single article could render an entire school unsafe.
That leads to two weeks ago, when I finally published, on this site, the article which has caused me so much trouble. You can find it here and judge for yourself whether its publication would make a school unsafe:
The story of this Substack does not end here. I will continue to write, and hopefully some of you will continue to read. In the future I’ll probably branch out further from just gender related topics, and I’ll almost certainly fit in Chesterton quotes whenever I can.
If you’d like to join me on this quest to know what’s worth knowing, I invite you to subscribe to this free newsletter and consider sharing it with your friends. That’s all for now, but I’ll be back soon!
This story was modified 8/18/22 to include the image I created in photoshop to replace its original. I also modified the footnotes to give the IT people a bit more slack after they allowed me to recover the document.
This story was modified again on 10/29/24 to remove several footnotes that were unnecessary to the content of the piece. Minor stylistic edits were also made. In hindsight, the strength of rhetoric and tone used in some communications referenced above was a poor choice.
This actually probably wasn’t because of bias or malice, and probably actually happened because I was almost the only person on the newspaper staff who actually got anything done. There might actually be more on that later because, if at all possible, I would like to see Valor Dictus become a publication worth reading, and Journalism a class worth taking at Robinson Secondary.
Strangely enough Ctrl-F doesn’t find one of the quotes at the source cited in that article even though its clearly there, and to this day I still don’t know why it doesn’t work.
The comments made in that chat after I was kicked are well worth further discussion, but they won’t be discussed here.
Amusingly the purpose of author’s notes was to allow writers of “News” to include a brief paragraph of opinion directly under the article. I myself used the function to display frustration at the absurd lawsuit filed against the governor by FCPS in Virginia School Districts File Lawsuit After Governor’s Order. On later reflection the practice seems a bit absurd, and I would encourage future editors of Valor Dictus to abolish the practice in favor of staff writing complete opinion pieces instead.
Not to be confused with the Southern Poverty Law Center
I never did get that email
While that may be true in general, it’s hard to remain calm when someone in authority tells you that 2+2=5, “shall not be infringed” means no handguns, or that fair use means nothing at all.
Even having been there I can hardly believe this happened
I did have to add that I was due back in my rightful classroom in 5 minutes after I made this stunning and brave MCU reference, but what can you do?
I had originally meant to write only one article, but I decided that it was better to split into two because I could tighten my focus that way.
The linked document goes to an internal Valor Dictus document that should probably be publicly available but isn’t.
Sadly, I lost several other alternative motto ideas when my account was prematurely purged by FCPS IT people because apparently giving graduating seniors accurate dates for when accounts will be disabled is too much to ask.
ADDENDUM: I have to give the IT people credit, they were very helpful when I asked for temporary access to my google drive again, though my email remained disabled.