Most high school newspapers are content with running stories on school sports, popular teachers and the next homecoming or prom.

At Oak Ridge High School in Tennessee, the student-run Oak Leaf covers mainly the same things, which made it all the more shocking when the paper published a story listing the success rates for different methods of birth control, sparking a controversy that has local and national students, parents, administrators and media officials discussing First Amendment rights and what is and is not appropriate for a high school newspaper.

"I understand that teenage sexuality is a sensitive issue for a high school newspaper to discuss," said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "But it's important that administrators do not censor the newspaper, that they do not take away the all-important freedom of the press. These young journalists should be applauded for taking on an issue that's important to people their age."

Administrators did censor the story, first by going into classrooms and mailboxes and confiscating all 1,800 available issues of the paper and then by reprinting a second version of the paper that excluded the birth control piece.

"We have a responsibility to the public to do the right thing," said Superintendent Tom Bailey, in an interview with the Associated Press. "We've got 14-year-olds that read that newspaper."

The story not only listed information about different kinds of birth control, but also discussed how contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department.

Further, the newspaper featured a story on student tattoos and body piercing that had a picture of a tattoo on a student. The student had not yet told her parents she had a tattoo. The new version of the newspaper also contained changes to that story.

Oak Leaf editors expressed anger and confusion at the seizure, saying the article simply addressed an important issue for teenagers and offered advice and information on how to be safe.

"We're still pursuing this," said Brittany Thomas, the student editor. "(School officials) wronged us."

Thomas hinted and Goodman confirmed that student editors might work with outside organizations like the Student Press Law Center to see what can legally be done about the seizure.

Outside media experts heavily criticized the administration's actions, calling them a blatant attack on First Amendment rights.

"This is a terrible lesson in civics," University of Tennessee journalism professor Dwight Teeter told the AP. "This is an issue about the administration wanting to have control. Either the students are going to have a voice, or you're going to have a PR rag for the administration."

The controversy is still hot at the school. At a school board meeting after the seizure, several parents and students showed up to voice their opinions. According to reports, students wore tape with the word "censored" across their mouths and shirts that had protest messages that read "Ignorance Isn't Bliss."

As for the student who wrote the story, Krystal Meyers, she defended her work and said she wouldn't want to see any changes made to her article. She said the idea for the story came about by talking to friends and students and learning that not many of them knew about their rights regarding birth control, including a teenager's right to obtain birth control without parental permission. On the flip side, a number of parents have expressed support for the actions of the administration, saying it is the responsibility of the parents to educate their sons and daughters about birth control and safe sex, not the responsibility of other kids. Administrators agreed, saying the issue was too sensitive for an entire community of teenagers, many of whom vary in their level of knowledge about sex and birth control. The idea is that education on such a subject should be left to the parents are other adults, and not to children. They insist that there was no intention of depriving the students or their newspaper of basic free-speech and free-press rights. Other officials remain unconvinced. "We're offering our support in this whole thing and we hope the administration allows the original story to be published," Goodman said. "I think there may be hope of persuading them as I think they are starting to see how wrong their actions were. There is also some belief that all of this negative publicity will at least persuade them to come up with a policy for how to deal with these types of situations so an incident like this doesn't happen again."