In the tapestry of American history, the press has woven itself as a fundamental thread, shaping narratives and disseminating information crucial to the nation’s growth and evolution. From pamphlets fueling the American Revolution to contemporary reporting sparking social change, the freedom of the press has stood as a pillar of democracy.
Yet, despite the freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment, student journalists across the nation continue to grapple with censorship, facing challenges that threaten the very essence of free speech.
In the Bill of Rights, the founding fathers acknowledged the important role the press played in gaining independence and protecting democracy. This document protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly and the right to petition the government. However, the interpretation of this fundamental right, particularly in the realm of student journalism, has remained a topic of debate.
The Supreme Court, hearing cases and interpreting what is protected by the First Amendment versus what isn’t, alters the prerogatives in student press and media.
Landmark cases such as Tinker versus Des Moines, that set the precedent that students do have First Amendment rights, and Hazelwood versus Kuhlmeier, a case that served as a jarring reminder of the vulnerability of student journalists’ rights, established the rights of student journalists over the past 50 years.
In a five-to-three ruling, Hazelwood versus Kuhlmeier upheld the censorship of a school-sponsored newspaper, setting a precedent that continues to reverberate through educational institutions nationwide.
Regis Jesuit High School, a private Catholic high school in the state of Colorado, is one of many high schools that allegedly limit what topics and discussions students can write about.
Elevate, the high school’s student-run magazine, had more than two articles revoked and two advisers fired by the school board due to editorials on sensitive themes such as abortion, the Blue Lives Matter movement, sexual harassment in churches and LGBTQ issues.
Former editor-in-chief and alumni Sophia Marcinek recalled how she felt stunned when she discovered the news of her former school retracting a pro-Choice vs. pro-Life op-ed article, explaining that her school board had never reviewed their work before publishing it due to prior established editorial policies.
“It was frustrating because we had spent a lot of time talking about how we never had peer review,” Marcinek said. “That was something that we were really passionate about because our rights as students were more limited than at a public school because we were private.”
Apart from private institutions, public schools with student-run newspapers such as the Viking Saga at Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska also encountered censorship.
After allegedly being mandated by school officials to use legal names when publishing articles, Marcus Pennel, a transgender male student, refused to adhere to what was being asked of him and chose to discuss LGBTQ+ issues in three articles for the newspaper’s June 2023 issue.
As a response, the school administrators shut down the Saga and canceled Northwest High School’s journalism program for the remainder of the year.
Instances of retracted articles and restricted topics underscore the challenges student journalists encounter in exercising their First Amendment rights.
An expert in Cultural Studies, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Social Change and Freedom of Speech, communication studies professor Dr. Bernardo Attias at California State University Northridge (CSUN) discussed the complexities of censorship within student media and the significance of safeguarding students’ constitutional liberties.
Having experience as Department Chair at CSUN, Attias emphasizes the importance of educating school administrators about students’ First Amendment rights, highlighting the need for comprehensive training programs to ensure that institutional policies align with legal protections for free expression.
“There is an assumption that an administrator’s job is to keep order, that their job is to keep things running smoothly,” Dr. Attias said. “They don’t think about their job also being to protect your rights.”
He further elaborated on the necessity of integrating discussions about students’ constitutional rights into administrator training, suggesting that topics such as First Amendment protections should be included alongside other mandated trainings such as sexual harassment and information security.
Enacted in 1977, California Education Code Section 48907 serves as a limitation on the Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier ruling by affirming the rights of public school pupils, including in private and charter schools, to freedom of speech and press while simultaneously protecting school employees from disciplinary action for defending student rights.
This code grants students the right to distribute printed materials or petitions regardless of financial support or use of school facilities, with exceptions for expression deemed obscene, libelous or slanderous, as well as material that incites unlawful acts, violates school regulations or disrupts the orderly operation of the school.
Section 48907 permits students to discuss and share their opinions on controversial topics in articles or publications that may appear objectionable to educators or administrators.
It enables student publications to uncover and analyze real-world occurrences while also giving them autonomy within their field. In short, it enables them to be “real journalists.”
Many student press and journalism programs are founded on the principles outlined in this code; however, despite the protection it offers, schools in California continue to face censorship.
In 2022, after publishing an article in Daniel Pearl Journalism Magnet High School’s newspaper that disclosed the name of an unvaccinated faculty member who refused to comply with L.A. Unified School District’s covid-19 mandate, the Pearl Post’s advisor, Adriana Chavira, a long-time educator at the school, was placed on unpaid suspension in 2022 for refusing to modify the article her students wrote. The incident was covered in the Los Angeles Times and by local broadcast TV stations.
According to former editor-in-chief Delillah Brummer, Chavira was presented with an ultimatum from the District: either take the information down or be suspended without pay.
Chavira was transparent with her students and let them decide what course of action they wanted to take.
“We kept it up because we weren’t going to change our position based on intimidation tactics by the district,” Brummer said. “This story was newsworthy and there was no reason for us to take it down.”
Writing an editorial explicitly outlining what the students were experiencing and being interviewed by various media outlets, such as the L.A. Times, Brummer intended to pressure LAUSD into responding.
“We really wanted the district to understand that they were silencing student voices,” Brummer remarked.
With support from the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, a slain journalist after whom the school is named, Chavira’s suspension was finally rescinded by a district official.
After Chavira’s reinstatement, the student publication continued to write articles as they did before, going as far as publishing an investigative piece detailing high concentrations of lead in LAUSD’s school drinking fountains, not allowing themselves to experience the chilling effect of censorship on free expression.
“We made sure not to let that happen,” Brummer stated. “We did our reporting just as we did before.”
The chilling effect is a phenomenon in which people or groups hold back in expressing themselves out of fear of breaking a law or regulation, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). In other words, self-censorship.
Despite being undaunted in her work, Brummer recalls feeling stressed from the backlash she received online through social media platforms.
“I received a minor death threat from someone on Twitter (X) saying ‘Death to snitches’ and tagged me,” she said. “It was upsetting but the harder backlash was knowing that our administrator and some of our teachers were angry at us.”
Brummer conveyed that the censorship she and her classmates experienced was the most stressful thing in her life, causing her to be impatient with her peers.
“If someone missed a deadline or did not communicate, it was hard to deal with that while also facing national censorship,” she said. “In retrospect, there were things that could have gone better.”
How she coped, however, was with support from her advisor and classmates. Exchanging words of encouragement during hard moments, such as when Chavira would need to disconnect with the class to relieve some of her stress.
“My advisor had my back every step of the way and I had her back,” she articulated. “It was really stressful but it was worth it.”
Dr. Attias reflected on the broader implications of student media censorship.
“It’s important to have people who are protective of and supportive of the students who are writing from a First Amendment standpoint,” he remarked.
However, Daniel Pearl was not the only school to face censorship in the state of California.
Last spring, Mountain View High’s student newspaper, The Oracle, published an investigative article covering student-on-student sexual harassment on campus and allegedly received de facto censorship from the school’s principal, Kip Glazer.
Shortly after the article was published, the school announced that the beginning journalism class wouldn’t be offered for the following school year and that the former advisor, Carla Gomez, would be replaced.
In response, Gomez, along with the Oracle’s co-editor-in-chief, Hanna Olson and former reporter Hayes Duenow, filed a lawsuit against Mountain View Los Altos High School District in February of this year.
As alleged in the lawsuit, when school administrators discovered the article, Glazer addressed the journalism class and asked students to write about the school in a “positive light” and then requested to review the article.
According to the lawsuit allegations, Glazer would then meet with the newspaper and would pressure them to remove specific parts of the article through bullying and intimidation.
Olson expressed that the extent of Glazer’s involvement in the article was beyond appropriate in an interview with the Mountain View Voice, a local newspaper based in Palo Alto, CA.
In the fight against censorship, advocacy organizations such as the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) have played a crucial role in defending student voices.
After deciding the First Amendment right was not violated when public school officials censor student speech that promotes illegal drug use in Morse v. Frederick, best known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case in 2007, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said he would go beyond the court’s majority and would overrule Tinker v. Des Moines because it “undermined the traditional authority of teachers to maintain order in public schools.”
Dr. Attias analyzed how the Supreme Court often sides with school administrators in cases regarding students’ freedom of speech.
“High school students have fewer First Amendment rights because schools are legally responsible for their safety, like legal guardians,” he said.
Comparing the frequency of student censorship occurring at high school versus at the university level, he notes that while censorship persists in universities, courts are less tolerant of it compared to high schools.
Speaking from experience in observing how high school students react when being censored, Dr. Attias explains students typically don’t pursue legal action because of how dilatory it can be.
“If the case goes to court, the decision is based on whether the speech causes disruption, as perceived by the school,” he states. “Ultimately, it may come down to appeals with the case potentially escalating through higher courts but this process can take years.”
Dr. Attias emphasizes that administrators often prioritize maintaining order over protecting free speech, especially in politically charged environments such as protests over sensitive topics.
Youth censorship in American high schools is on the rise, evident in actions ranging from book bans to the enactment of anti-critical race theory laws in 18 states and proposed bills in 9 states.
This trend is particularly concerning for young journalists, who face increasing challenges in exercising their freedom of expression.
As of 2023, only 17 states have enacted laws that protect student press freedom.
While the laws vary from state to state, the common goal remains: ensuring students possess the freedom necessary to address and publish discussions surrounding crucial topics, not just in schools but in their communities.
By advocating for their states to pass New Voice laws, which limit the authority of public school administrators to censor student publications arbitrarily, students can protect their rights to express themselves without fear of being reprimanded for their opinions or ideas.
Dr. Attias expressed his contention that administrators and educators should advocate for and protect students’ freedom of speech.
“The presumption should always lean towards protecting students’ rights,” Dr. Attias said. “Students should have the initial right to publish and censorship should only be considered if there is a genuine danger involved.”
Last November, a campus brawl here at Van Nuys High School resulted in the stabbing of two students, prompting a lockdown that lasted almost the entire school day.
Shortly after the lockdown was ordered, The Mirror staff sprang into action, swiftly uploading an article to the student news website that covered the incident, and simultaneously promoting it through Instagram and the school’s educational platform Schoology.
Hours after it was published online, LAUSD ordered the removal of the article without providing any explanation.
In the meantime, TV helicopters broadcast continuous live footage across the nation’s second largest TV market, news crews were reporting live from campus and Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho was holding a news conference in front of the school’s main building.
KABC, KNBC and FOX-11 even broadcast videos recorded by students during the fight that were almost immediately uploaded to social media.
The article was temporarily taken down several hours after it was first published. For the following two days, the staff made various attempts to contact school administrators to get a reason as to why the article was required to be taken down.
Student journalists have a First Amendment duty to cover and inform the community about current events, including sensitive topics on campus or information that might be viewed as portraying the school or district in an unflattering way.
California Education Code 48907 subsection D explicitly states that “School officials shall have the burden showing justification without undue delay prior to a limitation of pupil expression under this section.”
However in this case, student journalists were not provided an explanation prior to being ordered to remove the article.
“California lawmakers enacted Section 48907 precisely to prevent what happened at VNHS,” Student Press Law attorney Mike Hiestand said. “You covered breaking news accurately and responsibly. One would think they would have praised your excellent work as journalists instead of censoring it. By their logic, the next time your quarterback scores the winning touchdown, they will need to be benched immediately.”
When students were later given the opportunity to meet with school administration, they were told that possible reasons the article was temporarily required to be removed was because it mentioned student names or accompanied photos showing student faces.
However, the story did not contain student names. In addition, according to lawyers with SPLC, students — even those on campus — have no expectation of privacy once they are involved in a fight on campus.
Two days after the incident, the staff was given the go ahead to repost the article on the website with the stipulation that student faces be blurred and no names of those allegedly involved in the incident would have their names published due to an ongoing investigation
As student journalists are continually faced with student media censorship —even in states like California where they are given explicit legal protections under the Education Code to report as they deem necessary — it is becoming increasingly challenging for them to do their jobs.
At its core, the fight against censorship is a battle for the soul of democracy, as well as a battle for the truth. By amplifying the voices of student journalists and advocating for their rights, schools and communities can affirm their commitment to the principles of free speech and press freedom.
“Administrators often view student newspapers as a privilege rather than a right, which is a problematic approach,” Dr. Attias added. “While the resources to run a student paper may be a privilege, the ability to speak and publish without censorship is a fundamental right for students.”
