Introduction
High school students who penned and edited a newspaper for school journalism that was funded by the board and through sales of the paper served as the petitioners. The school head regularly read the paper before release, so he had a bias against the ideas presented in the two essays. One of the articles dealt with how a parent's divorce would affect their children, while the other story dealt with pregnancy at school. Smith claims that the case began when journalism students decided to publish oversensitive stories. (449). The piece was thrashed before publication after the principal had read these, an aspect that infuriated student journalism by what they regarded as deliberate imposition of censorship. What was even annoying is the fact that students lost in their bid for the justice system.
Procedural History
Lower Court: Eighth Circuit
Lower Court Ruling: Held: The pronouncement by the principal to outlaw the publication of the two articles seemed somewhat inappropriate and violated the First Amendment that guaranteed freedom to speech.
Supreme Court Ruling: Held: Overturned the decision of the Eight Circuit citing that the action the school principal undertook did not contravene the First Amendment when it comes to the right to freedom of speech.
Issue
Did the educators contravene the First Amendment rights of the students by censoring their publications?
Holding / Rule
No. Overturned. Educators do not violate the First Amendment by exercising journalistic regulation over the sophistication and content of student discourse in the school-related forum provided their actions are within the confines of the reasonable pedagogical concerns.
Reasoning
The court's verdict was anchored on the premise that the head teacher at Hazelwood had the constitutional basis to censor the school newspaper because it was a mere classroom activity and not a platform for public participation. According to Haynes et al., the write-up did not require an elaborate safeguard presented to the free press as stipulated in the First Amendment (12). The court would then go ahead to provide an elaborate cluster of particular conditions in which educators would be vindicated in censoring that publication. At that point, the court granted the educators that autonomy to control the content of the student journalism, and as such repressed students' right to free press as articulated in the First Amendment. While the Supreme Court has been adamant to refute subsequent cases that may have a keen interest in terms of clarifying the vague Hazelwood specifications, however, the collective assumption since Hazelwood has been that most secondary school essays lack the full-scale freedom of the press. In reality, it is ironical to suggest that as far as the current standing of a student is anything to go by, the First Amendment statute is an error.
Conclusion
In the end, I would support the decision by the Lower Court, which refutes the view that First Amendment was violated by the principal, because the freedom to a free press should not apply selectively or be limited to a certain age. The judges' verdict evidently contracted the space of learners' rights to exercise free speech at school (West, 25). Nonetheless, when it comes to student journalism, the judges moved away from the written means of expression. As such, the court failed to clarify whether or not similar specifications are applicable to student journalism. However, whether the court's position was a success is debatable.
Works Cited
Haynes, Charles C., et al. The First Amendment in Schools: A Guide from the First Amendment Center. Virginia. ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) publications, 2003.
Smith, Charles Anthony. "Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)." The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America 49 2015, p. 449.
West, Sonja. "Student Press Exceptionalism." 2015.
