I have a teacher that wants to remove the News Forum from their course. When they turn editing on and click the "X" to remove, it asks are you sure. They answer yes, and the News Form disappears. When they turn editing off, the News Forum is back.
I'm running release 1.8.2 (2007021520)
Thanks,
Tom
The News Forum is tied to the Latest News block. My suggestion would be to just hide the News Forum.