{"id":54794,"date":"2022-02-28T16:30:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/supreme\/supreme-court-insights\/student-first-amendment-rights-hazelwood-v-kuhlmeier-case-summ.html"},"modified":"2022-02-28T16:30:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:30:13","slug":"student-first-amendment-rights-hazelwood-v-kuhlmeier-case-summ","status":"publish","type":"supreme","link":"https:\/\/supreme.findlaw.com\/supreme-court-insights\/student-first-amendment-rights-hazelwood-v-kuhlmeier-case-summ.html","title":{"rendered":"Student First Amendment Rights: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Case Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Case Summary<\/h1>\n
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\n By Laura Temme, Esq.<\/a> | Legally reviewed by Ally Marshall, Esq.<\/a>\n | Last reviewed\n
\n \n <\/i>\n Legally Reviewed\n <\/summary>\n\n
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This article has been written and reviewed for legal accuracy, clarity, and style by FindLaw\u2019s team of legal writers and attorneys<\/a> and in accordance with our editorial standards<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/details>\n\n

\n \n <\/i>\n Fact-Checked\n <\/summary>\n\n
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The last updated date refers to the last time this article was reviewed by FindLaw or one of our contributing authors<\/a>. We make every effort to keep our articles updated. For information regarding a specific legal issue affecting you, please contact an attorney in your area<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/details>\n<\/section>\n

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In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public school officials have more control over "school-sponsored" speech than the First Amendment would typically allow.  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

In 1988, the United States Supreme Court placed a limit on the types of speech protected by the First Amendment in a school setting. The case,\u00a0Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier<\/i>, began with student journalists looking to push the envelope with articles they believed their classmates would relate to. It ended with the Supreme Court creating a new rule on student speech instead of applying the rule created twenty years earlier.<\/p>\r\n

Background of\u00a0Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier<\/i><\/h2>\r\n

In 1983, the Journalism II class at Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis, Missouri, included two articles in the school newspaper, the\u00a0Spectrum<\/i>. Both written by students, one article discussed teen pregnancy and the other discussed coping with parents’ divorce.<\/p>\r\n

As part of the student paper’s regular practice, the supervising teacher sent page proofs to the school principal, Robert Eugene Reynolds. Principal Reynolds found the divorce and teen pregnancy articles inappropriate, both for their content and concerns that the students featured in them would be identified, although all names in the stories had been changed. Believing there was not enough time to alter the articles before the paper went to print, Principal Reynolds instructed the paper’s faculty advisor to remove the pages.<\/p>\r\n

Without informing the student journalists, the principal deemed the articles inappropriate and removed them before the paper was published. The editor of the newspaper and two student journalists sued, claiming the school had violated their First Amendment Rights.<\/p>\r\n

First Amendment Rights of Students<\/h2>\r\n

Several other important cases have addressed the free speech rights of students.\u00a0Tinker v. Des Moines<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Bethel School District v. Fraser<\/i>\u00a0are both discussed in detail in the\u00a0Hazelwood\u00a0<\/i>opinion and dissent:<\/p>\r\n

Tinker v. Des Moines<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(1969) – Students wore black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam. The court held that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The justices established a new rule: A student’s speech could not be regulated by the school unless it is likely to cause a “substantial disruption” or “material interference with school activities.”<\/p>\r\n

Bethel School District v. Fraser<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(1986) – A student gave a speech in support of a classmate’s run for student government that included several sexual innuendos. The Supreme Court found that it is “highly appropriate” for a public school to limit the use of vulgar or offensive terms in the school setting.<\/p>\r\n

Hawk v. Easton Area School District<\/i><\/a>\u00a0(2013) – Students wore bracelets that said “I \u2665 BOOBIES” as part of a nationally recognized breast cancer awareness campaign. The case was not taken up by the Supreme Court, but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held it was protected speech.<\/p>\r\n

The Court’s Analysis in\u00a0Hazelwood<\/i>: School-Sponsored Speech<\/h2>\r\n

Rather than examine the case under the “substantial disruption” standard established by\u00a0Tinker v. Des Moines<\/i>, the Supreme Court created a new standard in\u00a0Hazelwood<\/i>\u00a0to address “school-sponsored speech.”<\/p>\r\n

The decision<\/a>, written by Justice Byron White, argued that the case did not ask the same question as\u00a0Tinker,<\/i>\u00a0and therefore, a different standard was needed. Justice White wrote that\u00a0Tinker\u00a0<\/i>asked the court to decide\u00a0<\/i>whether the First Amendment required schools to tolerate student political speech. Meanwhile, he saw\u00a0Hazelwood\u00a0<\/i>as a question of whether a school must affirmatively promote\u00a0a student’s speech.<\/p>\r\n

The majority in\u00a0Hazelwood<\/i>\u00a0distinguished a student’s personal expression that happens to occur on school grounds from expression that stems from a school-sanctioned activity:<\/p>\r\n

“A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission, even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school.”<\/p>\r\n

Why Control Student Speech?<\/h2>\r\n

Justice White argued several reasons for educators to have more control over student expression, such as:\u00ad<\/p>\r\n