A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
students don’t have First Amendment protection when they write for school
newspapers has become a “censorship tsunami” that lets school and college
administrators shoot down anything they fear would tarnish the school or college’s
images.
Over the years, it has tranquilized free
speech far beyond journalism, secondary schools, school-sponsored speech, and
print publications, says law professor Richard Peltz-Steele at University of Arkansas at
Little Rock.
The ruling had its roots at East Hazelwood High School in St.
Louis, Mo., where the principal objected to stories produced by journalism
students for the school newspaper on teen pregnancy and a classmate coping with her
parents’ divorce. The principal said the stories were editorially unsound and
unfit for an adolescent audience.
Student Press Law Center Executive Director Frank LoMonte said the
Hazelwood ruling is used routinely to defend such things as:
Auburn
University at Montgomery removing a 51-year-old graduate student from its
nursing program for speaking out about disciplinary policies.
Chicago’s
Stevenson High School banning a school newspaper story about an anonymous
student discussing the ease of obtaining drugs on campus.
The effect has been chilling on
challenging school censorship. There has been no such lawsuit in five years.
There was even an unsuccessful attempt
to justify censorship of a student’s Facebook page under the Hazelwood ruling
by the University of Minnesota.
Says LeMonte: “It’s disheartening
to see anyone censored, but it’s doubly disheartening when people are so
frightened and intimidated that they won’t even speak up about it.”
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