Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier

This case is about a school newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri that tried to publish two articles, one about teen pregnancy, and one about divorce.  It was right before the deadline for publishing, and the administration had to review it, as they always did.  However, they found these two articles, both of which had personal comments from students relating to the sensitive topics.  Their names weren’t used but the teacher felt that there was enough information to figure out who they were, and so he was concerned about their safety.  He also found some of the content inappropriate for the 9^th graders.  Because the deadline was so soon, he thought it would be best to simply eliminate the pages that contained the articles, even though they also had other articles on the same pages.  The students however, having worked on this for quite some time, thought that this kind of censorship of their work was against their first amendment rights. 

The district court found in favor of the school, but the students appealed and got it a level higher, where the court found in favor of the students.  Eventually, it made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, who found in favor of the school.  They felt that because it wasn’t a public forum, the school had the right to censor it for the safety and well-being of the students, and because it was a part of a class’s curriculum, not a separate entity. 

The finding of this case affects me as a student, because our own school newspaper is subject to censorship by our teachers and principal, and so might not always be a direct representation of the newspaper staff.  However, that being said, I do agree with the findings of the court.  If the paper was a sovereign entity then it shouldn’t be censored, but it is a subset of the school thus it should be subject to the rules and regulation of the school.