White Dresses and Blue Language Make for a School Scandal
The setting, the unlikely setting, for the latest cause celebre in school suspensions: the Marlborough School, a century-old private girls campus in Hancock Park that still holds mother-daughter teas, requires white dresses for graduation and calls its students “violets.”
But Marlborough School also is the sort of place that prides itself on the thoroughly modern mission of spawning a future corps of strong and independent women.
Enter Liz, Maggie and Sophia, three ninth-graders with writing talent, Internet access and time on their hands.
The result? A magazine called Whore-Hey, 32 handwritten pages chockablock with leftist causes, poems, prose, profanity and references to sex, which, in the mnagazine’s words, sought simply to “communicate our ideas to an audience that would normally not give a ---- what 3 teenage girls cared about.”
Clearly someone did care: At $2.50 a pop, the five dozen copies sold out quickly at the oldest private girls school in Southern California. But as the brash black-and-white publication found its way home in student backpacks, some readers--namely parents--were markedly less enthusiastic.
“Around these issues, there are strong emotions,” said Headmistress Barbara E. Wagner.
Calls of protest trickled in to the school administration. Then, amid rumors that the three girls were about to be expelled, the debate was joined by school board members, administrators and teachers. A few were outraged, sure, but others defended the girls’ 1st Amendment rights. Some even paused long enough to thoroughly read the teen ‘zine and label it either repellent or compelling. On the day the school’s discipline finally came down, other ninth-graders wore black in support of the trio.
“My first reaction was I wanted to know if my daughter was involved in it because I thought it was so good,” said Richard Green, a Beverly Hills attorney whose daughter is a ninth-grader at Marlborough. “Is some of it very immature? Of course. But wouldn’t we expect that [from] 14-year-old girls who are spreading their wings and exploring their boundaries?”
Student suspension controversies have been grabbing headlines across the country: the girl who brought a table knife in her lunch box to cut up her chicken, the girl who shared Midol with a friend, the little boy who kissed his classmate. . . .
L’affaire Marlborough began with an idea for a ‘zine whose title alone speaks volumes about its creators. The trio started with something any teenage girl can relate to--the full-haired John F. Kennedy Jr. But these girls were less interested in his marital status than his political magazine, “George.” Brainstorming a name for their own publication over the telephone one night, they came up with the Spanish version, “Jorge.”
Only they gave it their own irreverent twist, a phonetic spelling: “Whore-Hey.”
Beyond the cover’s hand-drawn picture (a woman hiding a baseball bat behind her back) are articles that advocate boycotting grapes and pledge the ‘zine’s profits--less than $100 at last count--to a Free Tibet organization. One page slams the Macarena as “for people who just want to shake their a-- on the dance floor.” Another provides graphic detail of how a girl sexually assaulted a boy, ending with the Internet address for a Web site dedicated to jailhouse rape prevention.
A Q & A pokes fun at an unnamed Marlborough seventh-grader who reveals that she thinks the Macarena is fun. And on a page dedicated to “Bitching!” the trio criticizes the recent ban on sitting at the Santa Monica Promenade: “What the hell else are we supposed to do?”
And what were they to do when they were summoned to the headmistress’ office just one day after their ‘zine went public Oct. 14?
Of the three, only 14-year-old Elizabeth “Liz” Janssen agreed to discuss the details with the mainstream press, perhaps less skittish because her own mom is a Times reporter. As Liz tells it, the girls basically adopted a hypocrisy defense--pointing out that adults bombard teenagers with sex and profanity in magazines, in advertisements, in movies. How can they be so hypocritical as to censor kids for using the same language?
The girls never intended to shock or offend, she insisted, merely to balance out the “complete fluff” that dominates popular teen magazines.
Besides, they were only taking literally the encouragement Marlborough liberally doles out. “It’s always ‘Be yourself. Be creative. Speak your mind,’ ” Liz said. “Well, we did and we got suspended.”
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The punishment was meted out swiftly: a single forced day off and Fs for any work due that day. For Liz, that means her C+ in Latin threatens to drop below the failing point.
Wagner said the decision to suspend was based on the girls’ “excessive use” of profanity and feelings by some students that they had been pressured into buying the ‘zine, though she concedes that the threesome “did not intend to unduly pressure them.”
Indeed, the girls’ major error seems to have been in selling the ‘zine.
Although private schools have broad censorship rights in many states, in California the Legislature, acting in 1992, made them adhere to the same 1st Amendment protections as public schools. The law allows educators to censor campus newspapers containing profanity and topics “unsuitable for immature audiences,” but offers little control over underground student publications produced off campus. Those generally can be distributed on campus--not sold--as long as they do not disrupt the school day.
On their return to campus after the suspension, the three girls heard how classmates had worn black in their honor--black clothing (in violation of uniform policy), black bits of ribbon, even scraps of black paper taped to their foreheads. Sympathizers spotted out of uniform were given demerits, which will count against their citizenship grade.
Typically, the school tried to turn it into a learning experience. There were class discussions and a lunchtime meeting where students were encouraged to air their feelings.
These days, even Wagner, the headmistress, openly applauds the girls for their Internet search skills and ability to deliver a message powerfully. They just took it too far, she says.
“If a similar situation ever came up again, my hunch is the students would deal with it differently,” Wagner said. “We talked to them about . . . coming to us first and saying, ‘We’re really interested in publishing these points of view,’ although I understand the dilemma with that, with defeating the whole underground idea.”
Buzz over the ‘zine is quieting down at Marlborough School, as students turn their attention back to their demanding studies and end-of-quarter exams. But the story is hardly over. In late-night phone conversations and after-school get-togethers, at this house and that, Whore-Hey’s second issue is taking shape.
“We want to get a monthly thing going,” Liz confides.
One likely topic, she adds, is the tale of the nascent edition, of the initial rave reviews and the subsequent suspensions, and the key lesson to be learned: Don’t sell an alternative magazine on campus. But that doesn’t cover mail subscriptions, does it?
