By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Officials of the tony Upper East Side Dalton School are accused of censoring the student-run newspaper, in what some students indicated was an attempt at image control, reported the New York Times Tuesday.
Two weeks ago, school officials confiscated a shipment of The Daltonian, which landed on the front steps of the school at 108 E. 89th St., over concern about a cover story they said misrepresented the level of alcohol consumption by the student body, according to the Times.
School administrators had an issue with the way the findings of a survey about student alcohol use were presented in the paper. The article in question included a survey reporting that 80 percent of respondents said they didn't drink "regularly." But according to school officials, the survey question did not ask students how frequently they drank, but rather, if they drank at all, the Times reported.
"While we approved the survey and its inclusion in The Daltonian in advance, surveys and other information must be reported accurately," school spokesman Jim Zulakis told the Times.
A corrected article was printed the following week, with additional "clarifications" in data, according to the Times.
Students and First Amendment advocates had a different view of the interference by school officials.
"I think they are worried about how other people would perceive Dalton," Dalton School student Idris Brewster, 16, told the Times. "They are worried about the image of Dalton and it getting out that Dalton drinks a lot."
Frank D. LoMonte, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, questioned whether school officials had the right to intervene.
"In the non-student setting, nobody would tolerate a rule that the government can step in and seize newspapers because some government actor decides the newspaper contains a mistake," he said, according to the paper.
