Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier 

“I think the Panther Tales is important because it helps us stay informed about the school, the clubs and sports,” says Jessica Perez (12).

The right to freedom of speech and the press has been a fundamental concept of human rights in which Americans have prided themselves on founding; however, many students don’t realize that in school, the concept of freedom of speech doesn’t apply.   

The 1988 Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier helped to define censoring rights of principals and publishing rights of students. It began when students from the journalism class of Hazelwood East High School wrote two articles for their school’s paper, The Spectrum. One article featured divorce of student parents, and the other featured teen pregnancies. The problem was that the school was small and the number of students facing the issues featured where few, making the identification of the people interviewed easy to determine, even though they were sourced as anonymous.

The principal, upon reading the articles pre-published, decided to take the stories off the school paper. He reasoned that the students interviewed could easily be distinguished, the articles topics may not be school appropriate, and that there was a journalistic error of not interviewing the parents of the divorce article. The authors however, believed the principal deprived them of their First Amendment rights, and therefore the case went to court.    

The principal won the case with a 5-3 vote and the actions taken on his behalf were justly done as he intended to protect the school and its students. Also since the paper was sponsored by the school, which meant it was subject to its editing concerning appropriateness and fairness of topic.

Many students agree with the 1988 journalists, believing “the Principal should not have the right to censor articles written by the school because it gives them too much power,” said Ana Leon (11).

Eduardo Ruiz (12) believes Supreme Court cases “are important to schools because they are usually meant to better the students learning” and opportunity.

It’s beneficial, as a student, to know that the articles published for the school are taken into consideration for the overall reason for which it was written and the message it sends to students, staff and the public. Learning of the purposes behind and beliefs held of many different court cases can help with the understanding of what rights we actually have and learning to appreciate the importance of such cases like Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier.