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Case
Summary: Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier
Changing the Rules
Hazelwood
School District v. Kuhlmeier raised the question of whether
the principal of Hazelwood East High School, near St. Louis, violated
the First Amendment rights of his students by deleting two pages
of the Spectrum, the school-sponsored newspaper that was
produced in a school journalism course.
A journalism adviser, who supervised the Spectrum’s staff,
submitted each edition to the principal for review, prior to publication.
In May 1983, a substitute was advising the newspaper because the
regular journalism teacher left before the school year ended. After
reviewing the May 13 edition of the paper, principal Robert Reynolds
decided that two articles should not be published. The articles
covered teenage pregnancy at Hazelwood East and the effects of divorce
on students. Reynolds decided to delete the two pages on which they
appeared, thus deleting additional articles as well.
This is how the story on teen pregnancy in the May 13 issue of
the Spectrum began:
Sixteen-year-old Sue had it all — good looks, good grades,
a loving family and a cute boyfriend. She also had a seven pound
baby boy. Each year, according to Claire Berman (Readers Digest,
May 1983), close to 1.1 million teenagers — more than one out
of every 10 teenage girls — become pregnant. In Missouri alone,
8,208 teens under the age of 18 became pregnant in 1980, according
to Reproductive Health Services of St. Louis. That number was
7,363 in 1981.
The article followed with personal accounts of three Hazelwood
East students who became pregnant. The names of all three were changed:
Terri: I am five months pregnant and very excited about having
my baby. My husband is excited too. We both can’t wait until it’s
born. . . .
Patti: I didn’t think it could happen to me, but I knew I
had to start making plans for me and my little one. . . .
Julie: At first I was shocked. You always think ‘It won’t
happen to me.’ I was also scared because I did not know how everyone
was going to handle it. . . .
Principal Reynolds believed the pregnancy article was inappropriate
for a school newspaper and its intended audience, and the girls’
anonymity was not adequately protected. He also believed that the
divorce article, in which a student sharply criticized her father
for not spending more time with his family, violated journalistic
fairness because the newspaper did not give the girl’s father a
chance to defend himself. As the journalism class was, in part,
designed to teach these notions of fairness, Reynolds asserted that
he was acting in the best interests of the school by censoring the
material.
Students on the Spectrum staff, surprised at finding two
pages missing, filed a lawsuit against the school on the grounds
that their First Amendment rights had been violated.
Five years later, the final decision came down in Hazelwood,
the first Supreme Court case to focus specifically on high school
student press rights.
The
Decision of the Supreme Court:
On Jan. 13, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-3 to
reverse the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
in St. Louis, which had upheld the rights of the students. The Court
ruled that Principal Reynolds had the right to censor articles in
the student newspaper that were deemed contrary to the school’s
educational mission.
Where Tinker gave students the power of free expression,
Hazelwood gave school administrators the power to censor
student newspapers.
The Supreme Court began its analysis by citing Tinker’s
basic premise that students “do not shed their constitutional rights
to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate.” But
the Court modified this position by citing Bethel vs. Fraser,
“A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent
with its basic educational mission.”
The Court said schools could censor any forms of expression deemed
“ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased
or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable for immature audiences,”
or any expression that advocates “conduct otherwise inconsistent
with the shared values of the civilized social order.”
The key: “Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising
editorial control over the style and content of student speech in
school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions
are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
The Court found it was “not unreasonable” for Reynolds to have
concluded that “frank talk” by students about their sexual histories
and the use of birth control, even though their comments were not
graphic, was “inappropriate in a school-sponsored publication distributed
to 14-year-old freshmen.”
Justice Byron White wrote in the Court’s majority opinion, “A school
must be able to set high standards for the student speech that is
disseminated under its auspices — standards that may be higher than
those demanded by some newspaper publishers or theatrical producers
in the ‘real’ world — and may refuse to disseminate student speech
that does not meet those standards.
“In addition, a school must be able to take into account the emotional
maturity of the intended audience in determining whether to disseminate
student speech on potentially sensitive topics, which might range
from the existence of Santa Claus in an elementary school setting
to the particulars of teenage sexual activity in a high school setting.”
Justice William Brennan filed the dissenting opinion, which was
joined by Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun. In his
dissent, Justice Brennan wrote that he found the newspaper at Hazelwood
East High School to be a “forum established to give students an
opportunity to express their views” and said the Supreme Court should
have applied the Tinker standard. Justice Brennan characterized
the censorship at Hazelwood East as indefensible, saying it “aptly
illustrates how readily school officials (and courts) can camouflage
viewpoint discrimination as the ‘mere’ protection of students from
sensitive topics.
“Such unthinking contempt for individual rights is intolerable from
any state official,” Brennan wrote. “It is particularly insidious
from one to whom the public entrusts the task of inculcating in
its youth an appreciation for the cherished democratic liberties
that our Constitution guarantees.”
Questions for Discussion
- What is prior review?
- What is censorship?
- What conditions had to exist for a principal to exercise censorship
of the student press according to the Hazelwood decision?
- Does the Hazelwood ruling apply to all public schools?
What factors does the court use to determine whether the student
newspaper has been opened by the school as a public forum?
- How did the Supreme Court reconcile its seemingly contradictory
holdings in the Hazelwood and Tinker cases?
- Under what circumstances may student speech in a school-sponsored,
non-public forum be limited according to the Hazelwood
decision?
- What forms of student expression, other than school-sponsored
student newspapers, could be censored under the Hazelwood
standard?
- Are school officials required to censor student expression under
the Hazelwood ruling?
- What is the difference between editorial decision making and
self censorship?
- If you were a high school principal, would your relationship
with the school’s newspaper be based on the Tinker standard
or the Hazelwood guidelines?
Points for Discussion
- What is prior review?
Prior review takes place when an official reviews material before
it is published or broadcast.
- What is censorship?
Censorship is an examination and removal of expression, both words
and images, to suppress what is considered morally, politically
or otherwise objectionable. It is rooted in an ancient Roman practice.
The censor was one of two officials who were responsible for taking
public census and supervising public behavior and morals.
- What conditions have to exist for a principal to exercise
censorship of the student press according to the Hazelwood
decision?
The Court said schools, public or private, could censor any forms
of expression deemed “ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately
researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable
for immature audiences,” or any expression that advocates “conduct
otherwise inconsistent with the shared values of the civilized
social order.”
- Does the Hazelwood ruling apply to all public schools?
What factors does the court use to determine whether the student
newspaper has been opened by the school as a public forum?
No. The Hazelwood ruling does not apply to publications
that have been opened as “public forums for student expression.”
According to the Student
Press Law Center “A student publication is a public forum
for student expression when school officials have given student
editors the authority to make their own content decisions. A school
can do that either through an official policy or by allowing a
publication to operate with editorial independence. … School officials
are only allowed to censor forum publications when they can show
the publication will cause a ‘material and substantial disruption’
of school activities.”
In addition, some states (currently Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Iowa, Kansas and Massachusetts) have passed laws that give students
much stronger free expression protection than Hazelwood.
- How did the Supreme Court reconcile its seemingly contradictory
holdings in the Hazelwood and Tinker cases?
In both decisions, the Supreme Court supported the mission of
schools to educate in a safe environment. While students have
First Amendment rights, these rights may be limited in the school
setting.
Under the Tinker standard, school officials could only
limit student free expression when they could demonstrate that
the expression in question would cause a material and substantial
disruption of school activities or an invasion of the rights of
others.
According to the Student Press Law Center, “In essence, the majority
opinion of the Supreme Court said that the rights of public school
students are not necessarily the same as those of adults in other
settings. The student newspaper at Hazelwood East High School,
it said, was not a ‘forum for public expression’ by students,
and thus the censored students were not entitled to broad First
Amendment protection. Therefore, the Court held that the school
was not required to follow the standard established in Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
“In the Hazelwood decision, the Court said that a different
test would apply to censorship by school officials of student
expression in a school-sponsored activity such as a student newspaper
that was not a public forum for student expression. When a school’s
decision to censor is ‘reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical
concerns,’ it will be permissible. In other words, if a school
can present a reasonable educational justification for its censorship,
that censorship will be allowed.”
In his sharp dissent, Justice Brennan said that he found the newspaper
at Hazelwood East to be a “forum established to give students
an opportunity to express their views....” He said that the Court
should have applied the Tinker standard. Brennan said that
the censorship at Hazelwood East “aptly illustrates how readily
school officials (and courts) can camouflage viewpoint discrimination
as the ‘mere’ protection of students from sensitive topics.”
- Under what circumstances may student speech in a school-sponsored,
non-public forum be limited according to the Hazelwood
decision?
School officials are allowed to censor student speech, including
a student publication that is curricular and not a public forum,
when they can demonstrate that their censorship is “reasonably
related to legitimate pedagogical [educational] concerns.” If
censorship serves no valid educational purpose, it is prohibited.
In Hazelwood
v. Kuhlmeier: A Complete Guide, the Student Press Law
Center states:
The Court gave several examples in its decision of what might
be censorable: material that is “ungrammatical, poorly written,
inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane,
or unsuitable for immature audiences.” Potentially sensitive topics,
such as “the existence of Santa Claus in an elementary school
setting,” “the particulars of teenage sexual activity in a high
school setting,” “speech that might reasonably be perceived to
advocate drug or alcohol use, irresponsible sex, or conduct otherwise
inconsistent with the ‘shared values of a civilized social order,’”
may also be censored. In addition, the Court said school officials
can censor material that would “associate the school with anything
other than neutrality on matters of political controversy.”
These examples, frightening in their breadth and vagueness, suggest
that school officials might be allowed to censor a great number
of things simply because they disapprove of them. In fact, the
Court said schools can demand of their student publications standards
“higher than those demanded by some newspaper publishers ... in
the ‘real’ world.”
However, a federal appellate court decision has indicated that
this standard still imposes significant limitations on school
officials’ rights. School officials must be able to show that
their censorship is “viewpoint neutral,” that is, that they did
not censor simply because they disagreed with a particular view
students were expressing.
- What forms of student expression, other than school-sponsored
student newspapers, could be censored under the Hazelwood
standard?
Although the Supreme Court decision applied to a student newspaper,
all student news and information media — yearbooks, literary magazines,
radio and television programs — have been affected. Drama and
music productions have also been included under the scrutiny allowed
by Hazelwood.
- Are school officials required to censor student expression
under the Hazelwood ruling?
No. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the 1988 U.S.
Supreme Court decision, gave public high school officials greater
authority to censor some school-sponsored student publications
if they chose to do so.
- What is the difference between editorial decision making
and self censorship?
When editorial decision making takes place, students are fully
responsible for the media’s content. The publication’s editorial
board meets to discuss what its community needs to know, should
know and wants to know.
Self-censorship is based in fear of reprisals from people who
can influence the course of students’ academic careers. While
self-censorship is impossible to measure, there are experts who
believe it is more prevalent since the Hazelwood decision.
Paul McMasters of the First Amendment Center says students — particularly
those on newspapers that are cleared by school administrators
before publication — try to avoid conflicts and steer clear of
potentially sensitive or controversial issues that might not meet
with the principal’s approval. “The student who opposes censorship
now is the unique one, not the other way around,” McMasters says.
“Sometimes the biggest proponents of censorship are fellow students
harassing the student journalists. [These students] haven’t been
taught in their classrooms the benefits and the absolutely necessity
of a free and open debate and dialogue in our society.”
- If you were a high school principal, would your relationship
with the school’s newspaper be based in the Tinker standard
or the Hazelwood guidelines?
Answers will vary. High school principals who want to control
the student press tend to cite Hazelwood as a justification
for prior review or restricting the subjects students can address
in their school publications.
Michael Hiestand, attorney for the Student Press Law Center, puts
it, “Administrators who are bent on censoring the paper can use
Hazelwood for that purpose. Those who want to give press
rights to students can certainly choose to read Hazelwood
guidelines that way.”
Much of this file is excerpted from “From Tinker to Hazelwood:
Landmark Supreme Court decisions and how schools deal with them”
originally appeared as chapter 7 in “Death By Cheeseburger:
High School Journalism in the 1990s and Beyond.” Reprinted by
permission, The Freedom Forum.
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