By Jenna Spoont
In
just a week, a high school junior from Pennsylvania will share her story about
the battle with her district’s school board over the use of a word that her
student newspaper staff considers a “racial slur.”[i]
Gillian
McGoldrick, editor-in-chief of Neshaminy High School’s Playwickian, and the paper’s student editorial board, wrote a piece
in the student newspaper back in November 2013 indicating that they were going
to stop using the word “Redskins”, the school’s nickname and mascot, in their
student publication. The administration disagreed with the students’ decision
and a conflict regarding the school’s publications policy ensued. Recently, the
school board removed McGoldrick from her position for one month, suspended the
newspaper’s adviser for two days without pay, and deducted $1,200 from the
student newspaper’s budget.[ii]
The
Washington Post jumped on board with the Playwickian
editors’ decision and banned the “insulting” word in the Washington Post’s
opinion section.[iii]
Although McGoldrick’s story has reached the national spotlight, a similar tale
has been told before, in the Hazelwood
School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988) Supreme Court decision.
In
this case, the Court held “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.”[iv]
The school principal at Hazelwood East High School censored two pages of the
six-page student paper because of the subject of the articles—pregnancy and
divorce.
According
to data from the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), the organization received 12
percent more calls for help from student journalists and advisers between 1988
and 1989 than in previous years.[v]
The SPLC, a non-profit organization that advocates for the First Amendment
rights of student journalists, was founded in 1974. The number of calls to the
Center increased over 170 percent from 1989 to 1990. The SPLC reported, “almost
all student journalists and advisers said that they attributed the censorship
at least in part to the Hazelwood
decision.”[vi]
In
response to calls for assistance, the SPLC launched a campaign in 2012 called
“Cure Hazelwood” to push for states to establish anti-Hazelwood laws that support “public forum” (non subject to
censorship) student publications.[vii]
California, Massachusetts, Iowa, Colorado, and Kansas passed laws that
counteract the Hazelwood decision in
their respective states.[viii]
Pennsylvania
established certain regulations in their educational Code of Conduct (effective
in 2006) that address student censorship issues. The actions of Neshaminy
School District’s board likely violates the Code, according to Robert Hankes,
the president of the Pennsylvania School Press Association.[ix]
Under the Pennsylvania Code, “School officials shall supervise student
newspapers published with school equipment, remove obscene or libelous material
and edit other material that would cause a substantial disruption or
interference with school activities.”[x]
The
Pennsylvania Code adheres to the Tinker v.
Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) Supreme Court
decision that gave students the freedom of expression on school grounds as long
as the expression does not involve a “substantial disorder or invasion of the
rights of others.”[xi]
In Tinker, two high school students
and one junior high school student were suspended from school for wearing black
armbands that signified a protest of the Vietnam War. The Court decided that
armbands are a form of “pure speech” and do not disrupt conduct on school
grounds.
The 5-3 Hazelwood decision came as a shock to student journalists and First
Amendment advocacy organizations. Associate Justice William J. Brennan wrote in
his dissenting Hazelwood opinion that
the decision “chills student speech” because school officials can censor what
they consider “sensitive.” Brennan explains, “[Moreover, the] State’s
prerogative to dissolve the student newspaper entirely (or to limit its subject
matter) no more entitles it to dictate which viewpoints students may express on
its pages, than the State’s prerogative to close down the schoolhouse entitles
it to prohibit the nondisruptive expression of antiwar sentiment within its
gates.”[xii]
The
Hazelwood decision also applies to
other student organizations, not solely publications. Any student involved in
theatre could have his or her freedom of expression taken away because the
school desires “standards that may be higher than those demanded by some
newspaper publishers or theatrical producers in the ‘real’ world.”[xiii]
Student
journalists and actors do participate
in the “real” world—who else other than students can have the inside scoop of
the hallways in their high school or perform live productions for their peers?
Students make up the “real” world because clearly, as we see in the Neshaminy situation, students impact the “real”
world.
The
SPLC, Journalism Education Association, and Student Press Rights Commission
sent an open letter in September encouraging the student editors of the Playwickian “to explore their legal
options and urge the State of Pennsylvania to investigate whether the Neshaminy
School Board members should be removed.”[xiv]
McGoldrick
will present at the 2014 Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic
Press Association Fall National High School Journalism Convention in
Washington, D.C., Nov. 6-9. The program offers over 250 sessions for the
attendees to learn about First Amendment law, ethics, writing, editing,
broadcasting, and more. Over 5,000 student journalists and advisers are
expected to attend the convention.
Jenna Spoont is a writer for the GW PLSA
Blog. She was a staff writer at the Student Press Law Center from May 2014 -
August 2014
[i] Schiffbauer, Anna.
"Playwickian Adviser, Student Editor Suspended for Defying Administrative
Orders with Redskins Ban." Student Press Law Center. Student
Press Law Center, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.splc.org/article/2014/09/playwickian-adviser-student-editor-suspended-for-redskins-ban>.
[ii] Reimold, Dan.
"Redskins, Revenge, Censorship: The Ridiculous Mascot Fight at a
Pennsylvania High School." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Oct. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-reimold/redskins-revenge-censorsh_b_5958440.html>.
[iii] Editorial Board.
"Washington Post Editorials Will No Longer Use 'Redskins' for the Local
NFL Team." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2014.
Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
[iv] Lockhart, William B.,
Yale Kamisar, and Jesse H. Choper. Constitutional Law: Cases, Comments,
Questions. 11th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Pub., 1980. 1044. Print.
[v] "The Hazelwood Decision
and Student Press | Scholastic.com." Scholastic Teachers.
Student Press Law Center, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/hazelwood-decision-and-student-press>.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] "SPLC." Cure
Hazelwood. Student Press Law Center, 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.splc.org/section/cure-hazelwood>.
[viii] "The Hazelwood
Decision and Student Press | Scholastic.com." Scholastic Teachers.
Student Press Law Center, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/hazelwood-decision-and-student-press>.
[ix] Spoont,
Jenna. "Neshaminy School Board Passes New Policies Limiting Student
Publications and School-related Social Media Rights." Student
Press Law Center. Student Press Law Center, 27 June 2014. Web. 28 Oct.
2014. <http://www.splc.org/article/2014/06/neshaminy-school-board-passes-new-policies>.
[x] Students and Student
Services, § 12 (2006). Print. The Pennsylvania Code
[xi] [xi]
Lockhart, William B., Yale Kamisar, and Jesse H. Choper. Constitutional
Law: Cases, Comments, Questions. 11th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Pub., 1980.
1039. Print.
[xii] Ibid., 1046.
[xiii] Ibid., 1044.
[xiv] "SPLC, JEA-SPRC
Condemn Neshaminy School District For Punishing Newspaper Editor, Adviser in
Ongoing Fight Over." "Redskins" Name. SPLC,
JEA-SPRC, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.splc.org/article/2014/09/splc-jea-sprc-condemn-neshasminy-school-district>.
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