Hazelwood versus Kuhlmeier in 1988
was a case that involved a free speech claim
by student newspaper editors.
They complained about the fact
that two pages of their school newspaper
were deleted by the principal
because one story had to do with student pregnancy,
another story had to do with students
whose parents were getting divorced.
The Hazelwood case came on the heels of the Tinker case,
which had set a general speech protective standard
for student free speech.
So the student newspaper editors argued in Hazelwood
that the principal was not justified
in suppressing the stories in the student newspaper
because those stories did not cause a material
or substantial disruption of the educational process
or interfere with the rights of other students.
This school newspaper should have been viewed
as what the courts call a limited public forum,
for student speech.
As long as the speech is deemed relevant
and of interest to students in the school,
they should be able to express any viewpoint at all
on any topic at all.
The school argued the school had not, in fact,
created a limited public forum in this circumstance
for indiscriminate student expression.
If you look at the overall factual context
that this was taking place in a heavily teacher-controlled
and principal-controlled environment of a journalism course,
that is reasonably viewed not as conveying
the students' own ideas,
but rather as speaking on behalf of the school.
The outcome of the case was to reject the First Amendment
arguments of the student newspaper editors,
and to create a new rule that was a complement
to the Tinker rule.
And basically, the Hazelwood rule is
that if certain expression, even if it involves students,
if it is reasonably perceived as school-sponsored,
endorsed by the school,
then the school may restrict that expression
as long as the restriction is reasonably designed
to promote a legitimate pedagogical concern.
The impact of the decision in Hazelwood
has been very interesting
because it actually involved
a factual assumption
that was disputed between the justices in that case.
Should the school newspaper reasonably be viewed
as an expression on the part of the school?
Or should it reasonably be viewed
as the students' own expression?
Justice Brennan's dissent pointed out
that although the school does have a fair interest
in making sure that it is not wrongly seen
as sponsoring or endorsing ideas in the newspaper,
there are ways that the school could make that clear
that are far short of actually deleting or censoring
the students' articles.
And a number of student newspapers
in the wake of this decision did adopt a disclaimer policy,
making it absolutely clear
that what is in the student newspaper
reflects the views of the students
and not necessarily the views of the school.
State legislatures actually have passed laws
saying that as a matter of state law,
newspapers that are produced in the public schools
should be viewed as and legally constitute organs
for the expression of students
and are not subject to the editorial
or censorial control of
and do not represent the viewpoints
of the schools themselves.