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What this amounted to was a reasonableness test. As long as an educator's actions were reasonable related to retaining order in school, then an educator could censor a school-sponsored publication. Reynolds had legitimate reasons for censoring the articles. He was concerned that anonymous sources would be identifiable from the context of one of the articles, and that could lead to disruptions in the classroom. He was also concerned about what appears to be a potential case of libel, because an article was going to publish negative information about a parent without giving the parent an opportunity to respond to the article's allegations. Those were legitimate concerns and gave him the right to censor the articles.
Holding
The Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and determined that Reynolds' censorship of the articles was not a First Amendment violation.
Reaction
This decision seems to follow both the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment. Many people talk about First Amendment rights as...
The two things are separate and distinct issues. The students had the right to free speech and it does not appear that anyone was trying to prevent them from speaking. They were not penalized for writing the articles. However, the school district sponsored the paper, and, therefore, had competing rights. The school had the duty to ensure that the articles were responsible and would not cause disruption to the school. Had the students been penalized for that speech or had the paper been student-sponsored and disseminated, the principal's actions may have been impermissible. This decision seems to strike a good balance between First Amendment protections and a school district's duty to its students.
References
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
The Oyez Project. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, Retrieved February
2, 2011 from Oyez, website: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_86_836
S. constitution grants its citizens the right of freedom of speech but this freedom is not available in absolute terms. Many a times schools & educational institutions exercise control in different affairs related to its curricula, extra curricular activities and even in-house publications. The administration however can not take this exception for granted and have to prove that their control does not blatantly impinge upon the rights given to students
The officials did not show any intent to allow indiscriminate use by student reporters, editors, or other students, and so were entitled to regulate the paper's contents in any reasonable manner (Hazelwood pp). The standard for determining when a school may punish student expression that occurs on school premises is not the standard for determining when a school may refuse to "lend its name and resources to the dissemination
D. joined the Majority. Justices Blackmun, H.A. And Powell, L.F. wrote a special and regular concurrence respectively. In addition to voting with the majority, O'Connor S.D. joined Powel's concurrence. Writing Dissenting Opinion(s): Stevens, J.P. filed a dissenting opinion in which Marshall, T. And Brennan, W.J joined. Brennan also filed a separate dissenting opinion in which Marshall T. joined. Case 5 Citation: Santa Fe Independent School District v. Jane Doe (2000) Argued: March 29, 2000 Date
Here, the Plaintiff and all of the members of the God Squad were arrested and removed from school property by police. The police acted on probable cause that the group was inciting violence on school property after observing their offensive and disruptive behavior. Additionally, the Plaintiff was given an arraignment, charged with trespassing, disturbing the peace, and inciting a riot, and was released on bail to the custody of his parents.
The student journalists sued, citing the Tinker standard (Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 1988). The issue in this case, while similar to those of Tinker and Fraser, differed in that the question was not about "obviously inappropriate" language, or about viewpoint discrimination. Instead, the issue was whether a school official had the right to censor school-sponsored publications if they believe the material is inappropriate for some students, or that the
Caselaw.findlaw.com);in Guiles v. Marineau (2006) (No. 05-0327 2nd Cir. Court) the Court of Appeals ruled that the school "violated a student's free speech" by disciplining him for wearing a T-shirt that criticized George W. Bush and used images of drugs and alcohol (www.NSBA.org);Roberts alluded to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (No. 86-836) (484 U.S. 260) (1988), in which a student newspaper was censored because of an article on pregnancy, as justification for