Hazelwood

            Suppose Jimmy Olson, cub reporter, submits a story to Perry White his editor and publisher of the Gotham Times.  White decides not to publish the story.  May the State require White to publish Olson’s story?

            No.  The First Amendment would protect the publisher’s right to decide what is published.  Any governmental attempt to protect Olson’s right to have his story published would violate the Publisher’s free speech and free press right under the First Amendment.

            Okay, Now move the story onto a public high school campus.  The school, as part of its journalism class, publishes a newspaper (The Spectrum).  Jimmy Olson, Jr. is enrolled in the Journalism class and submits a story about teenage sexual activity to his publisher, the Principal of the school, Perry White.  The Principal kills the story.

            Should Jimmy Olson, Jr., cub reporter for the Journalism class newspaper, have greater rights to publish over the objections of his publisher than Jimmy Olson, Sr., cub reporter for the Gotham Times?

 Now suppose the school play at Lincoln High this year is Romeo and Juliet.  The student cast members decide they would like to do a modern production of the play complete with hip hop dialogue [e.g. "Yo, R-Boy, zup" who says "wherefore art thou" today, am I right?] and several nude scenes.  The school refuses to allow this and insists that the play be performed based upon the original text of the play.   

Who should decide – Mrs. Jones, the drama teacher and Mr. Smith, the school principal? Or the student Thespians? 

The Court in Hazelwood distinguishes between a student's personal expression (controlled by Tinker) and student speech as part of the curriculum or school-sponsored publication or theatrical production. (p. 1534)  

Hazelwood says this is the test in the latter cases:

“Instead, we hold 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.” (p. 1534).

 

Does this also explain Fraser?After all, the purpose of the school-sponsored assembly in Fraser was to teach students about elections and democracy. Was the censorship in Fraser reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns?