VENTURA : Principal May Ban Underground Paper

The principal of Ventura High School has asked a student to clean up the language in a self-published underground paper or stop distributing it on campus.

Principal Robert Cousar said the Reality Press Weekly, started this school year by senior Bear Wilner, contains obscene language and suggestive articles, and that distributing it on school grounds is a violation of district policy.

But Wilner, an honors student who said he started the newsletter on a home computer as an alternative to the school paper, said he may appeal Cousar’s decision to the school district. Wilner said he makes photocopies of the letter at his mother’s law office and does not use school equipment.

The paper’s seventh issue will be distributed Monday but not on school property, Wilner said.

Past issues of the newsletter, printed on 8 1/2-by-11 sheets of paper stapled together, have included articles about gay rights, the environment and saluting the flag, Wilner said.

Wilner acknowledge that the paper, many of whose articles are anonymous or written under pseudonyms, contains some four-letter words. “I print anything any of my writers give me,” Wilner said. “I correct grammar but not word choice.”

Cousar said he found out about the paper after a teacher and a student from the school paper gave him copies.

“The interesting thing is some of the writings were very creative,” Cousar said. “The obscenities did nothing to enhance the point they were making. They were just stuck in there.”