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TIL my old high school paper got pulled from the archive over one letter to the editor, and nobody fought it
I went looking for my old high school paper online last week and found out the whole 2003 archive got taken down in 2019 over a single letter to the editor about the Iraq war. The librarian in Beaverton told me a parent complained and the district just pulled it, no debate, no meeting, nothing. What gets me is that back then we argued about stuff in the cafeteria and it blew over by Friday. Now one complaint can erase 6 years of student work in an afternoon. I read the letter myself since a copy survived on a Wayback page, and it was just a kid saying he did not trust the news, pretty tame stuff. Does anyone know if there is a way to ask a district to put old archives back up, or is that gone for good once they decide?
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anna4912h ago
That "no debate, no meeting, nothing" part bugs me the most. I read about a similar case in Washington state where a district pulled old papers and the state library board got involved, mostly because the archive was already public record by then. Might be worth calling your state library association, not just the district, since they can push on records rules. Also check if the Wayback copy covers the whole archive, because sometimes folks have quietly mirrored this stuff on archive.org and you can at least point the district to it.
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