Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier

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1988 US Supreme Court case

1988 United States Supreme Court case

Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held, in a 5–3 decision, that student speech in a school-sponsored student newspaper at a public high school could be censored by school officials without a violation of First Amendment rights if the school's actions were "reasonably related" to a legitimate pedagogical concern.

The case concerned the censorship of two articles in The Spectrum, the student newspaper of Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis County, Missouri , in 1983. When the school principal removed an article concerning divorce and another concerning teen pregnancy , the student journalists sued, claiming that their First Amendment rights had been violated. A lower court sided with the school, but its decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit , which sided with the students and found that the paper was a "public forum " comparable to speech outside an educational setting. The Supreme Court reversed, noting that the paper was established by school officials as a limited forum for the purpose of a supervised journalism class, and could be censored even though similar speech in an off-campus or independent student newspaper would be protected.

The case, and the earlier _Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District _ (1969), are considered landmark decisions for defining the right of expression for students in public schools. While subsequent court rulings have varied on when Kuhlmeier applies, the case remains a strong precedent in the regulation of student speech. However, the state statutes protecting student free expression, enacted by 17 states as of March 23, 2023, most in response to the limitations of Kuhlmeier, typically adopt the more protective Tinker precedent.

Background

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Facts of the case

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The case concerned The Spectrum, a student newspaper published as part of a Journalism II class at Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis County, Missouri .

The Spectrum was published roughly every three weeks during the 1982–1983 school year.

About 4,500 copies were distributed to students and community members. The cost of printing the paper, as well as supplies, textbooks, and a portion of the academic advisor 's salary, were furnished by the district's board of education , supplemented by newspaper sales. For that school year, the board supplied $4,668 in printing costs, and Howard Emerson, the adviser to the journalism class, submitted page proofs of the May 13 issue of the newspaper to principal Robert Eugene Reynolds for approval, a practice that was customary at the time.

Reynolds objected to two of the stories scheduled to run. One was about teen pregnancy , containing interviews with three students who had been pregnant. The story used false names to keep the girls' identities a secret, but Reynolds was concerned that the students would still be identifiable from the text. He was also concerned that the references to sexual activity and birth control were inappropriate for younger students at the school. The second story was about divorce and featured an interview with a student whose parents were divorced, in which she complained that her father "wasn't spending enough time with my mom, my sister, and I ... was always out of town on business or out late playing cards with the guys ... always argued about everything". Reynolds, unaware that the girl's name would also be changed, argued that her family should have been given an opportunity to respond within the story or to object to its publication.

Reynolds did not believe there was time to make changes because, if there were any delays in publication, the newspaper would not be published before the end of the school year. After consulting with his supervisors, he opted to publish a four-page newspaper instead of a six-page one, omitting the pages containing the two stories in question. Cutting two pages removed a total of seven articles from the paper. Reynolds did not tell the students about the decision, and they did not find out about it until the paper was delivered to the school.

In response, editor Cathy Kuhlmeier and reporters Leslie Smart and Leanne Tippett filed suit in January 1984 with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union . Kuhlmeier later said that the idea for the pieces had come from old issues of The Spectrum and that she had been looking to update them.

Legal precedent

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Until the 1960s, administrative review of student publications was considered routine at both the high school and collegiate level. However, with the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s , student publications began to explore social issues with greater fervor, focusing on the Vietnam War , the civil rights movement , sexual orientation , and other topics considered controversial at the time.

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court held in _Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District _ (393 U.S. 503 ) that students' freedom of expression is protected under the First Amendment. Following that precedent, at least 125 cases in lower courts across the country were decided in favor of student expression and against administrative censorship. Whenever an instance of censorship involved action by a government employee, such as a school principal or a college dean, the courts held that First Amendment safeguards applied.

Under the Tinker precedent, courts recognized student newspapers as public forums in which expression could be restricted only if administrators could prove that substantial disruption of school activities was imminent. Two subsequent cases—_Healy v. James _, 408 U.S. 169 (1972), and _Papish v. University of Missouri Curators _, [410](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_St

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