Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier
Synopsis
§1.1 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988)
§1.2 Three former students of Hazelwood East High School feel their First Amendment rights were violated when school officials deleted two pages of articles from an issue in the school’s newspaper.
§1.3 The defendants (also named as petitioners) are Hazelwood School District in St. Louis County, Missouri; various school officials; Robert Reynolds (the principal of Hazelwood East High School); and Howard Emerson (a teacher in the school district). The plaintiffs (also named as respondents) are three former Hazelwood East students that were staff members of Spectrum, the student-run school newspaper. The plaintiffs claim that their First Amendment rights were violated when the defendants withheld two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983 issue of Spectrum.
§1.4 The Court largely looks at the Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) and Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986) when arguing both the majority and dissenting opinions.
§1.5 The Court’s majority opinion argues that the school was not in violation of the First Amendment and was merely maintaining journalistic integrity and enacting its duties in protecting the students from sensitive topics, guaranteed by the Hazelwood School Board Policy, the Hazelwood East Curriculum Guide, and the precedents set by Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) and Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986).
§1.6 The majority opinion of the Court held that the school was merely protecting other students from sensitive topics. Therefore, the school did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights by withholding the articles.
§1.7 The Court’s dissenting opinion was rhetorically stronger than the Court’s majority opinion due it’s structure, and it’s attack on the Court’s disregard of Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969), which set a precedent for the students’ individual rights that are protected by the First Amendment.
Explanation
§1.1.1 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988)
§1.2.1 The plaintiffs, three former students from Hazelwood East High School, claim that defendants, officials from Hazelwood East High School, violated their First Amendment rights by deleting two pages of articles from the May 13, 1982 issue of the school’s student-run newspaper, Spectrum, without discussing it with the students or allowing them to make changes to the articles.
§1.3.1 Spectrum was written and edited by the Journalism II class at Hazelwood East, was published every three weeks during the school year, and was funded by the Board of Education. During the spring semester of 1983, it was practice for the journalism teacher to submit page proofs of each Spectrum issue to Principal Reynolds to approve prior to publication. With this particular issue, Reynolds objected to two articles scheduled to print in the May 13 edition. One article was about three Hazelwood East students’ experiences with pregnancy, and the other article was about the impact of divorce on students at the school. With the first article, Reynolds was concerned that the pregnant students (who were given fake names in the story) would be easily identifiable, and that the article’s references to sexual activity and birth control were too inappropriate for some students at the school. With the second article, Reynolds (unaware that the student;s name was removed from the article by Emerson) was concerned that the student was too harsh on his or her parents, and that the parents should have been given an opportunity to respond to the remarks in the article or consent to the publication of the article. Claiming that there wasn’t enough time to make the necessary changes to the articles before the May 13 issue had to be sent to press, Reynolds concluded that his only options were to 1) publish a four-page newspaper instead of the planned six-page newspaper; 2) eliminating the two pages on which the two articles appeared; or 3) publish no newspaper at all. Reynolds decided to withhold the two pages from publication, a decision that was supported by his superiors. By withholding two entire pages from the issue, Reynolds eliminated the two articles in question, but he also eliminated five other articles in the process. None of the students were informed about the withholding of their articles, and none of the students were provided a chance to address the issue with the articles. The plaintiffs claim that their First Amendment rights were violated when the principal, with approval of school officials, deleted two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983 issue of Spectrum without proof that the issue would interfere with school discipline or the rights of other students.
§1.4.1 Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969)
§1.4.1.1 This is about five students who wore black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. The principals of the schools implemented a policy that would require children in school to remove the armbands. IF the students refused to comply, they would be suspended and sent home until they did. Three of the students were suspended for wearing the armbands in protest. The Court’s majority opinion holds that the First Amendment protections extend to students in public schools and educational authorities who wish to cenor speech must show that permitting the speech would significantly interfere with the discipline needed for the school to function.
§1.4.2 Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986)
§1.4.2.1 This is about a student who used a series of secual double entendres during a speech that nominated one of his classmates for the position of Associated Student Body Vice President. The school administration found him in violation of policies regarding vulgar speech and disruptive behavior. This student was barred from speaking at graduation and also faced suspension. The Court’s majority opinion holds that public schools have the right to discipline a student for giving a speech at a school assembly that is indecent, although not obscene.
§1.5.1 Spectrum, Hazelwood East High School’s newspaper, is written and edited by the Journalism II class and published every three weeks during the 1982-1983 school year. The Board of Education allocated funds (supplemented by proceeds from sales of the newspaper) from its annual budget for the printing of Spectrum. The Board of Education also provided supplies, textbooks, and a portion of the journalism teacher’s salary from its funds.
§1.5.2 Students in the Journalism II class are taught by a faculty member during regular class hours. The students also write their articles for Spectrum during these regular class hours. The students also received grades and academic credits for their contributions to Spectrum. Thus, Spectrum is considered as part of the education curriculum and a regular classroom activity.
§1.5.3 Since the Spectrum is considered as part of the education curriculum and is funded by the Board of Education, Spectrum is considered as a pedagogical forum rather than a public forum. Moreover, with the Spectrum defined as a pedagogical forum, school officials of Hazelwood East High School are entitled to exercise a greater control over the students’ speech to assure that the students’ learn the basics of journalism and journalistic integrity. This also means that school officials may exercise greater control over the material of Spectrum, in order to ensure that the readers (other students, school personnel, and members of the community) are not exposed to material that may be inappropriate for their level of maturity and that the views of the individual speaker are not erroneously attributed to the school. Therefore, the Court holds that school officials were entitled to withhold the articles from Spectrum and did not violate the students’ First Amendment rights.
§1.6.1 Majority Opinion: The Court’s majority opinion was held by Justice White, Justice Rehnquist, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia. In the majority opinion, Justice White recognizes that “the determination of what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate properly rests with the school board” rather than with the federal courts. With this in mind, the majority opinion argues that since Spectrum is funded by the school board, is monitored by a faculty member during regular class hours, and is written by students who receive grades and academic credits for their contributions, then Spectrum is part of the educational curriculum and a regular classroom activity. Thus, the Court’s majority opinion is that Spectrum is not a public forum, but rather a pedagogical forum that can be monitored by the school board and school officials based off of the Hazelwood School Board Policy and the Hazelwood East Curriculum Guide. Furthermore, the majority opinion argues that educators are entitled to exercise greater control over this pedagogical forum to assure that the participants (the students) learn whatever lessons the activity is designed to teach, that readers or listeners are not exposed to material that may be inappropriate for their level of maturity and that the views of the individual speaker are not erroneously attributed to the school. In the majority opinion, the Court holds that the Hazelwood School District did not violate the students’ First Amendment rights when school officials exercised control over the style and content of the students’ speech in the school-sponsored newspaper, Spectrum.
§1.6.2 Dissenting Opinion: The Court’s majority opinion was dissent by Justice Brennan, and was joined by Justice Marshall and Justice Blackum. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Brennan argues that Spectrum was not just a class exercise for the students, but a public forum for the students to express their views. The dissenting opinion brings up how the student journalists published a Statement of Policy that announces “Spectrum, as a student-press publication” that “accepts all rights implied by the First Amendment... Only speech that ‘materially and substantially interferes with the requirements of appropriate discipline’ can be found unacceptable and therefore prohibited.” It also points out that the school board itself guaranteed that it “will not restrict free expression or diverse viewpoints within the rules of responsible journalism.” The dissenting opinion also states that the case only arose because the administration of Hazelwood East breached its own promise to its students when the school principal, without prior consultation or explanation to the students, excised six articles (comprising two full pages) of the May 13, 1983 issue of Spectrum. The dissenting opinion argues that the principal violated the individual rights guaranteed to the students by the First Amendment.
§1.7.1 I think that the Court’s dissenting opinion was rhetorically stronger than the Court’s majority opinion. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Brennan strategically points out that the Court’s majority opinion ironically uses the Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) without fully grasping the precedent it sets. It was also very strategic of Justice Brennan to attack the Court’s majority opinion.
§1.7.2 In the Court’s dissenting opinion, Justice Brennan immediately starts off by contradicting the definition of Spectrum set forth by the Court’s majority opinion. In the majority opinion, Spectrum is defined as a pedagogical forum. In the dissenting opinion, Spectrum is defined as a public forum. To be more specific, the dissenting opinion states that Spectrum “Was not just a class exercise in which students learned to prepare papers and hone writing skills, it was a ... forum established to give students the opportunity to express their views while gaining an appreciation of their rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution...” Justice Brennan then explains that the student journalists publish a Statement of Policy every year, which has to be approved by school authorities. The year of 1983, the Statement of Policy quotes Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) (See §1.4.1), “Spectrum, as a student-press publication, accepts all rights implied by the First Amendment . . . .Only speech that `materially and substantially interferes with the requirements of appropriate discipline' can be found unacceptable and therefore prohibited.” This statement was approved by the school board, and (per Board Policy 348.51) the school board even guaranteed the students that Spectrum would be “an atmosphere conducive to fostering such an appreciation and exercising the full panoply of rights associated with a free student press. School sponsored student publications will not restrict free expression or diverse viewpoints within the rules of responsible journalism.”
§1.7.2.1 This was a bold way to open up the dissenting opinion. Justice Brennan starts off by immediately quoting Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) and policies of the school board that distinctly show how the school board and school officials violated their own policies when they stepped in and withheld the articles. It immediately calls the school board out. He then uses this to lead into his argument that the principal not only breached its own promise to the students, but also “violated the First Amendment’s prohibitions against censorship of any student expression that neither disrupts classwork nor invades the rights of others.” (which a precedent that is set by Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969)).
§1.7.3 The dissenting opinion then provides a numerous list of prior court cases that establish precedents on how the school board or school administration may not censor any student expression that neither disrupts classwork nor invades the rights of others. For example, he discusses how the school board may not remove books from library shelves merely because it disapproves of ideas they express; public schools may not compel students to salute the flag; state law prohibiting the teaching og foreign languages in public or private schools is unconstitutional, etc. The dissenting opinion further looks at Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) to establish that under this precedent, educators may “censor poor grammar, writing, or research because to reward such expression would materially disrupt the newspaper's curricular purpose.” However, this precedent does not allow for educators to censor work in order “to shield the audience or dissociate the sponsor from the expression.”
§1.7.3.1 This is another strategic move by the dissenting Judge Brennan because it allows the readers to see several instances similar to this case, that are ruled in favor of the plaintiffs due to the precedent set forth by Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969) which the majority opinion discusses, but interprets wrong. Justice Brennan even discusses Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986).
§1.7.4. The dissenting opinion also disproves the majority opinion’s point that the principal only withheld the articles in order to shield the impressionable high school audience from sensitive topics. The principal censored one of the articles because it was about teenage sexual activity. However, the principal had approved an article on the same page that dealt with teenage sexaulity, the use of contraceptives, and teenage pregnancy. Justice Brennan argues that if the purpose of withholding the articles were to shield the other students from sensitive topics, than it should have been equally questioned.
§1.7.4.1 This is another strategic move by the dissenting Justice Brennan. He directly points out that one story about tennage sexaulity, the use of contraceptives, and teenage pregnancy was approved in the same issues, but the story about teenage pregnancy was not approved. This makes it seem like the principal was not shielding the younger audiences from sensitive topics, but rather the message of the articles themselves. One article is about safe sex while the other is construed as irresponsible sex because ot resulted in teenage pregnancy. This is a strategic move to strengthen the argument that the school did violate the students’ First Amendment rights.
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