2021 Social Justice Reporting finalists

Oct. 27, 2021

National Scholastic Press Association announces the finalists in its 2021 Social Justice Reporting competition.

Winners in this and all Individual Award categories, as well as the NSPA Pacemaker Awards in Broadcast, Newspaper/Newsmagazine and Specialty Magazine, will be announced virtually at 4 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021.

Finalists are alphabetical by state.


Register for the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention, presented virtually Nov. 1, 2021, to Jan. 15, 2022.

Enter the Best of Show competition for the fall virtual convention.

Register for the Philadelphia Storytelling Workshop.

NSPA’s first in-person Pacemaker Master Class will be presented Nov. 11-13, 2021, at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.


Social Justice News Story

“Being Black at Paly”
Benjamin Antonow, Braden Leung, Ajay Venkatraman
The Campanile
Palo Alto High School
Palo Alto, California

“Through Instagram Account, Current and Former Black Students Offer Scathing Criticism of GDS’ Record on Race”
Jacqueline Metzger, Ethan Wolin
The Augur Bit
Georgetown Day School
Washington, District of Columbia

“Blue Valley Bigotry”
Claire Powell, Charlie Trent, Tymber Moody, Stephanie Kontapanos
The Tiger Print
Blue Valley High School
Overland Park, Kansas

“Black Literature: Perspectives of Representation of Black History in Education”
Lauren Pickett
The Messenger
Marquette High School
Chesterfield, Missouri

“An Open Dialogue”
Merica Griffin
Tesserae
Corning-Painted Post High School
Corning, New York

“Taking a stand
Staff
Spark
Lakota East High School
Liberty Township, Ohio

“I can’t breathe”
Staff
ReMarker
St. Mark’s School of Texas
Dallas, Texas

“Bisexual student dates while closeted from parents”
Madi Olivier
The Marquee
Marcus High School
Flower Mound, Texas

“Seen but not heard:
How medical bias endangers Black women”
Ella West, Noura Jabir
Review
St. John’s School
Houston, Texas

“An Alternate Reality:
Confronting the parallel world people of color face”
Saisha Dani, Shruthi Manimaran, Swetha Manimaran
The Highlander
McLean High School
McLean, Virginia