'Ripple Effect' of High Court's Press Ruling Seen as Test of Schools' Journalism Policies

By Debra Viadero

Within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last month broadening the censorship powers of principals, a storm over student-press rights was already brewing in a Cupertino, Calif., high school.

As students tell it, the conflict began the morning of Jan. 13 at Homestead High School, when the principal visited the class in which the school's student newspaper was produced and told staff members to "shelve" a story they were preparing on a student diagnosed as carrying the aids virus.

To the students, the principal's action was clearly...