The student newspaper at Menlo-Atherton High School has sent a cease and desist letter to a documentarian who used some of the newspaper’s videos, resulting in the film being pulled from YouTube and Vimeo.
The documentary “Killing America” looks at the recent controversies in the Bay Area, and in particular, Sequoia Union High School District and M-A related to ethnic studies, honors classes and antisemitism.
The M-A Chronicle sent a cease and desist letter to “Killing America” filmmaker Eli Steele last week, saying the film had used “a significant portion of our video coverage and photos of (school) board meetings and screen recordings of one of our short form videos,” according to the newspaper’s posts on social media signed by “The M-A Chronicle Editorial Board.”
As a result of the M-A Chronicle’s letter, YouTube and Vimeo have pulled the roughly 40-minute-long video off their platforms, according to social media posts by Steele. The film is narrated by Steele’ father, Hoover Institute fellow Shelby Steele.
“This is nothing short of weaponized censorship and legal action will be taken,” Steele wrote on X.
Steele wrote on X that the “two-second clip” of an M-A Chronicle video was used within the Fair Use doctrine, which allows for snippets of work to be used for “commentary, criticism, news reporting and scholarly reports,” according to the U.S. Copyright Office.
“The video that I used in the trailer and the film was published online and to YouTube and was filmed at a school board meeting, a public forum. I should also mention that Menlo-Atherton High School is a public high school and its paper likely receives public funding,” Steele wrote.
The school newspaper’s editorial board wrote that it made its decision to send Steele a cease and desist “without communicating with or being influenced by M-A administration.”
— Daily Post staff report
These students have been indoctrinated and now are putting what they’ve learned to work.
The term “useful idiots” comes to mind.
They emphasize that the school administration wasn’t involved, but they don’t say if the teachers put these kids up to it. The most radical, racist and antisemitic people at M-A are the faculty, not the administration. I can see a teacher convincing students that if the get this video off of YouTube, everybody will get an A.
Hopefully this movie is the end of DEI, which is teaching our kids to look down on blacks and Latinos. We need to shift to a colorblind society, but the progressives won’t drop the racism.
This documentary is wrong in so many ways. When people see a video that’s so off base, they should demand that it be removed. This isn’t about censorship but about accuracy and fairness.
How is it “wrong in so many ways”
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What are they teaching these kids — to be journalists or censors?
We’re watching the Barbra Streisand Effect. The teachers union and these kids thought they’d stop people from watching the video. But instead they’ve called attention to it, and they’re flocking to X to watch it.