Student journalism is one of the few ways that students are actively engaged in learning unmeasurable skills of thorough investigation, attention to detail, and collaboration with their peers. However, school administrations that aim to censor student newspapers are restricting the freedom of the students’ abilities to adjudicate independently what content needs to be published. Unfortunately, a majority ruled in the 1988 Supreme Court case that schools are allowed the power to prohibit topics such as pregnancy and divorce and take out articles that they deem to be disruptive, a vague and inconsistent term, to the educational environment. The conclusion of the Supreme Court must be invalidated, as giving schools the ability to censor student newspapers to their discretion contradicts the fundamental principles of true journalism, allows schools to expurgate any material that jeopardizes their image, despite the fact that students are permitted to promulgate content freely outside of schools grounds.
Most importantly, the Supreme Court ruling in the Hazelwood School case is unacceptable, as it obstructs the basic fundamental to inform the public with the truth in journalism. Student journalists must carry the responsibility of providing truth to their peers, and having specific articles eliminated from publication goes directly against the journalists’ abilities to achieve this objective. Abiding to the true values of journalism, journalists bring attention to the information and events that the public are eager to hear along with information they would much rather ignore. When John Howard Griffin documented his experiences as a white man disguised as a black man in the South during the 1950s, he published “Black Like Me” with the full awareness of the backlash that he would receive in response to it. However, Griffin expressed his desire to apprise the white majority of the injustices black people were having to endure daily due to the failures of the “separate but equal” clause and how that desire overcame any acts of reprisal that would follow. Griffin’s unembellished account of the truth illustrates the real motive behind journalism: to impart information that reveals the shortcomings of society. When Barbara Ehrenreich published her struggles as a minimum-wage worker in “Nickel and Dimed,” she uncovered the faults and corruption found in the economic system of America. In the same way, student journalists have the duty to bring transparency into the school setting to draw attention to the school’s issues through their student newspapers so that solutions and improvements can be made. Specifically, Hazelwood’s student newspaper is a “conduit for student viewpoint,” where students can gain knowledge on the perspectives of their peers. Censorship of a student newspaper teaches the students that “the press ought never to report bad news, express unpopular views, or print a thought that might upset its sponsors,” which all contravene the values of journalism. With censorship, students will seek information that they know the school administration will approve, rather than the information they believe students ought to know. Similar to how many supporters of the Jim Crow Laws and the Welfare Reform Act did not want Griffin and Ehrenreich, respectively, to publish their journalistic reports, school administrators strive to censor school newspapers for their personal benefits of maintaining the school’s image by conflicting with basic journalism principles.
Additionally, the Supreme Court’s approval for the Hazelwood school administration to censor their student newspaper must be overturned because this allows schools to portray a false image of their school. Because of this court ruling, school administrations are able to maintain a favorable image, regardless of how erroneous the depiction is. Even after a decade of the Supreme Court ruling, the Supreme court ruling continues to impede on students’ reportings of anything critical of their schools. When a member of the Washington State student newspaper articulated the student majority’s desire to improve the school’s cafeteria food, the principal responded by forbidding the school publication of anything negative regarding their school. Notably, in this particular situation, the school’s decision to censor its students’ criticism of the cafeteria food was not supported by “legitimate pedagogical concerns,” as the 1988 Supreme Court ruling declared, but because of the vagueness in regards to how a school can choose to censor its student publications, schools can get away with justifying any of their decisions. Although it is true that school cafeteria food does not have direct ties to its “basic educational mission,” publications about cafeteria food does not disrupt the school in any way. Similarly, as the opposing justices to the ruling declare, the Hazelwood student’s articles on pregnancy and divorce “neither disrupted classwork nor invaded the rights of others,” as the students in the articles remained completely anonymous. The Supreme Court ruling is unreasonable, as censorship of their school newspapers was in fact a way for the Hazelwood school to maintain an overly unrealistic and polished outer-appearance of their school.
While proponents of the Hazelwood Supreme Court ruling may argue that students can express their unrestrained opinions outside of school organizations, this ruling is unfair for the students whose only way of journalism is through their school newspapers. Some may argue that with restrictions on student newspapers by the school administration, students are free to document anything through their own independent means of journalism. For instance, some students can print their own newspapers through their home desktop and local printing services to distribute among their peers. Students may also openly publish articles through web sites and forums that they create. This is possible because these independent means of journalism do not play “an integral part of the school’s educational function,” as the district court reasons, and they are not school-sponsored. However, while these forms of expression are importants ways to spread information and perspectives, this argument does not make up for the fact that many of these ways are inaccesible to students who have limited financial support. Printing newspapers can be costly and even unthinkable for students who do not come from wealthy support systems. Many students today do not have the reliable means to access the Internet provided by laptops and phones. Only through a school newspaper, students are able to voice their opinions and engage in journalism regardless of their financial circumstances. Also, off-campus reporting does not have the same scope of outreach for members in the community as school newspapers do. School newspapers are passed directly between peers, whereas websites and personal newspapers are only able to reach certain groups of people. Although students can consider publishing through independent means of journalism, these ways are largely disadvantaged by the lofty costs and limited extent to which other students can be reached.
The Hazelwood Supreme Court ruling on the censorship of student journalism can have devastating consequences on the future of journalism, as it threatens the integrity of the journalist’s search for truth and allows schools to paint an unrealistic image of themselves, even with the reality of serious problems that need to be addressed. While some argue that students have other means of reporting information outside of school, these means are often unattainable for students without the financial support to do so, and these forms of journalism do not reach as many students as school newspapers do. Our students are the leaders and innovators of the future, and for the sake of instilling democratic values of unrestrained freedom of speech and expression, we must support the overdue nullification and amendment of the 1988 Hazelwood School Supreme Court decision.