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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: Teaching Censorship By Kimberly Phillips In civics classes, high school students are taught that the First Amendment is the foundation upon which political freedom stands. But in their journalism classes, they are frequently taught the opposite lesson, as Hazelwood, a late '80s Supreme Court ruling that gives principals the power to review and censor high school newspapers, continues to have chilling effects on high school journalism. Issues of free speech in high schools were first considered by the Supreme Court in Tinker vs. Des Moines. The 1969 decision, which concerned students who were suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, ruled that a student's right to free expression should not be limited while in school or on school grounds. Although the case did not deal specifically with newspapers, it was interpreted to apply to all kinds of student expression--including student newspapers. But in 1988, the Supreme Court handed down a different decision, one that specifically limits the free-press rights of high school students. The case, Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, concerned students at a suburban St. Louis high school who were prevented by their principal from publishing articles about teenage pregnancy and the effects of divorce on high school students in the school-sponsored student newspaper. The Court ruled that "educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1226 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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