2000

March 3 & 4     Regional Mock Trial
April 7 & 8       State Mock Trial
May 11 - 14     National Mock Trial

The Case on Point this month is Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988). In that case, former Hazelwood East High School students, who were staff members of the school’s newspaper, filed suit against the school district and school officials, alleging that their First Amendment rights were violated when school officials deleted two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983, issue of the school newspaper, Spectrum. Spectrum was written and edited by a journalism class at Hazelwood East. The newspaper was published approximately every three weeks during the 1982-1983 school year. More than 4,500 copies of the newspaper were distributed during that year to students, school personnel, and members of the community.

The practice at Hazelwood East during the spring 1983 semester was for the journalism teacher to submit page proofs of each Spectrum issue to the principal for his review prior to publication. On May 10, the teacher delivered the proofs of the May 13 edition to the principal, who objected to two of the articles scheduled to appear in that edition. One of the stories described three Hazelwood East students' experiences with pregnancy; the other discussed the impact of divorce on students at the school.

The principal was concerned that, although the pregnancy story used false names "to keep the identity of these girls a secret," the pregnant students still might be identifiable from the text. He also believed that the article's references to sexual activity and birth control were inappropriate for some of the younger students at the school. In addition, the principal was concerned that a student identified by name in the divorce story had complained that her father "wasn't spending enough time with my mom, my sister and I" prior to the divorce, "was always out of town on business or out late playing cards with the guys," and "always argued about everything" with her mother. The principal believed that the student's parents should have been given an opportunity to respond to these remarks or to consent to their publication.

The principal believed that there was not sufficient time to make the necessary changes in the stories before the scheduled press run and that the newspaper would not appear before the end of the school year if printing were delayed to any significant extent. He concluded that his only options under the circumstances were to publish a four-page newspaper instead of the planned six-page newspaper, eliminating the two pages on which the offending stories appeared, or to publish no newspaper at all. Accordingly, he directed the teacher to withhold from publication the two pages containing the stories on pregnancy and divorce. He informed his superiors of the decision and they concurred.

As a result, the newspaper staff members filed suit seeking a declaration that their First Amendment rights had been violated, injunctive relief, and monetary damages. After a bench trial, the District Court denied an injunction, holding that no First Amendment violation had occurred. 607 F.Supp. 1450 (1985). Hazelwood School District, 484 U.S. at 264. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the judgment of the District Court. 795 F.2d 1368 (1986). The court stated that school officials were precluded from censoring Spectrum’s content except when " 'necessary to avoid material and substantial interference with school work or discipline ... or the rights of others.' "

In holding that the former students’ First Amendment rights were not violated, the United States Supreme Court explained that “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.” Hazelwood School District, v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. at 273. Additionally, the court stated, “[i]t is only when the decision to censor a school-sponsored publication, theatrical production, or other vehicle of student expression has no valid educational purpose that the First Amendment is so ‘directly and sharply implicate[d],’ (citations omitted) as to require judicial intervention to protect students' constitutional rights.” Finally, the court concluded that the principal acted reasonable in requiring the deletion of two pages from Spectrum containing the pregnancy article and the divorce article. The principal “could reasonably have concluded that the students who had written and edited these articles had not sufficiently mastered those portions of the journalism curriculum that pertained to the treatment of controversial issues and personal attacks, the need to protect the privacy of individuals whose most intimate concerns are to be revealed in the newspaper, and ‘the legal, moral, and ethical restrictions imposed upon journalists within [a] school community’ that includes adolescent subjects and readers.”

Resources at the Law-Related Education Inventory

ABA Law Day Awards

Terrific Technology for Teachers

1. At http://www.freedomforum.org/ you will find the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. The forum was founded Dec. 15, 1991, the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. The center serves as a forum for dialogue, discussion and debate on free expression and freedom of information issues. The center's mission is to foster a greater public understanding of and appreciation for First Amendment rights and values, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of press, and the right to assemble peaceably and to petition government. The center is affiliated with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., through the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies.
2. If you click on http://oyez.at.nwu.edu/ you can hear the Marshall of the United States Supreme Court introduce the opening of the Supreme Court. Also at this Web site, you will find the leading constitutional law cases. Additionally, the OYEZ Project contains many hundreds of hours of audio materials delivered through a free player available from Progressive Networks. Simply download and install the Real Player for your operating system. Of course, you will need a sound capable computer and speakers. Finally, the Project also contains dozens of panoramic images of the Supreme Court Building. To view these images in the Tour section, you will need to download and install QuickTime (for Windows or for Macs). QuickTime is available from Apple Computer.
3. The Web site located at http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/intro.html was designed to aid you in understanding the complexities of free speech in government-funded activities.
4. To finds links to materials relating to freedom of speech and press, click on http://samsara.cwru.edu/links/fsp.html

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Law 2000: Understanding the Role of Law in Society

Law Matters

Lesson Plan #2 Freedom of the Press