Gretna Public Schools: Administrators Censor Anti-ICE Cartoon, Impose Prior Restraint

In January 2026, Gretna East High School student journalist Aiden McClaren published an editorial cartoon critical of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Administrators required the student paper to take down the cartoon, and when McClaren sought to write an opinion piece about his experience with censorship, administrators demanded to review it prior to publication . On April 7, FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative wrote to Gretna Public Schools to urge the school board to reverse administrators’ censorship and to adopt a formal student media policy that would protects high school journalists’ First Amendment rights.