The Legality of Censorship: A Brave New World?

The following are legal decisions that pertain to school publications and censorship. Read them closely and let us know what you think.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969): The First Amendment applies to students on school property unless officials can demonstrate a reason to restrict it.

Situation: Two students wore black armbands to school in December 1965 to silently protest the Vietnam War. School officials said the expression would disrupt the school.

The Supreme Court said:
Constitutional rights extend to students, even when they're on public-school property.
First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this court for almost 50 years.

Public school officials must justify attempts to suppress or punish speech. They cannot stop or punish speech solely because they find it offensive. But, they can regulate speech when they show that the expression would cause a "substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities."
However, the court has shifted the focus from students to school officials and what they must do to meet their responsibility to instill societal values in students.

Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986):

Situation: A student gave a 2-minute campaign speech during a school-sponsored assembly. He used no four-letter words, but he did use sexual innuendo to describe a candidate for student government office:
"I know a man who is firm -- he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm -- but most of all, his belief in you, the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts -- he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally -- he succeeds. Jeff is a man who will go to the very end -- even the climax, for each and every one of you. So vote for Jeff for A.S.B. vice president -- he'll never come between you and the best our high school can be."

Prior to the speech, the student (Fraser) had discussed the contents of his speech with two teachers, who told him the speech was "inappropriate and that he probably should not deliver it," and that delivery of the speech might have "severe consequences." The Supreme Court noted that during Fraser's delivery of the speech, some students hooted and yelled; some by gestures that graphically simulated the sexual activities pointedly alluded to in respondent's speech. Other students appeared to be bewildered and embarrassed by the speech. A Bethel High School disciplinary rule prohibited the use of obscene language in the school. Fraser was suspended for three days but served two.

Excerpts from the Supreme Court's decision:
"The pervasive sexual innuendo in Fraser's speech was plainly offensive to both teachers and students -- indeed, to any mature person. By glorifying male sexuality, and in its verbal content, the speech was acutely insulting to teenage girl students. The speech could well be seriously damaging to its less mature audience, many of whom were only 14 years old and on the threshold of awareness of human sexuality. Some students were reported as bewildered by the speech and the reaction of mimicry it provoked.

This Court's First Amendment jurisprudence has acknowledged limitations on the otherwise absolute interest of the speaker in reaching an unlimited audience where the speech is sexually explicit and the audience may include children.

We hold that petitioner School District acted entirely within its permissible authority in imposing sanctions upon Fraser in response to his offensively lewd and indecent speech. Unlike the sanctions imposed on the students wearing armbands in Tinker, the penalties imposed in this case were unrelated to any political viewpoint. The First Amendment does not prevent the school officials from determining that to permit a vulgar and lewd speech such as respondent's would undermine the school's basic educational mission.

A high school assembly or classroom is no place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards an unsuspecting audience of teenage students. Accordingly, it was perfectly appropriate for the school to disassociate itself to make the point to the pupils that vulgar speech and lewd conduct is wholly inconsistent with the "fundamental values" of public school education."

Points from Bethel: The Supreme Court distinguished the Bethel case from Tinker, saying that since there were different circumstances, different First Amendment standards applied:
School officials have more control over the content of a school-sponsored assembly.
School officials have a duty to instill moral values and encourage civility.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988): The Supreme Court recognized that school principals have broad powers to censor school-supported student expression.

Situation: The high school principal cut stories dealing with divorce and teen pregnancies from the school newspaper.

The Supreme Court said:
The student newspaper was not a public forum but "a supervised learning experience."

School officials could regulate the content of the newspaper "in any reasonable manner."i

School officials could censor not only because of concerns that the expression would disrupte the educational process, "impinge on the rights of other students, but also because the expression is "ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable for immature audiences."

The ruling applied to any school-sponsored expressive activities "that students, parents, and members of the faculty might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school."
Hazelwood does not require administrative censorship of student publications.