Patton 1

Trey Patton
Mrs. Cramer
Comp Pd. 4
5 Oct. 2018
America Needs More Freedom

We all know the First Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights, which is freedom of the

press, but did you know that school newspapers are still being censored? School newspaper censorship is

a big deal because people feel that it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights. But now-a-

days, school newspapers have a trend of being censored, this topic also ends up in a lot of court cases,

both todays and years ago; the worst part of this is that colleges are starting to do it as well.

To start off with, a bit more of an explanation on the school newspapers being censored. My first

example of a school censoring their own newspaper, is in the Burlington High School. The students found

out that their newspaper they spent a lot of hours making got censored, so the parents of these students

decided to press charges against the high school guidance director for trying to force them to take the

newspaper down, after all, they were allowed to make one. This was all over the students right to put the

story on a student run BHS website (Powell). The students also claim that they felt pressure from the

school's supervisor to take the story down. The principle had also been reported for asking them to take

the story down (DeSmet). He claimed it “meets an exception to the law by substantially disrupting the

ability of the school to perform its educational mission” (Powell). The students still insisted that they

should be allowed to publish the story through freedom of the press. The story of students fighting their

school's administration blew up all over the news, and it eventually led to them winning the battle. On a

side note, many of the students at the school supported that the story be allowed to stay up, which might

have played a big part in them actually winning over the school (Powell). The school’s guidance director

ended up getting six charges of unprofessional conduct which ended the year-long investigation

(DeSmet). This is just one example of many schools that have censored newspapers. This leads me to my

next point.
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Next, there are court cases that are about censorship of student run school's newspaper. One

example is the 1988 Supreme Court Hazelwood decision. This court case gave the right to high school

principles to censor their own school's student run newspaper. As stated in the short book by Lillian

Kopenhaver, people feel that giving this kind of power to public schools is almost like voiding the First

Amendment (pg. 1). There is also the other side of this argument, which states that since the

administrators run the schools’, they should be able to censor what they feel is necessary so that the

school is able to run smoothly and as best as it possibly can. That is the whole reason the administrative

team is there, as stated in her short book (pg. 2). The book states that 60 percent of principles say that they

should be able to prohibit publications that they think are harmful to the school's productivity, which is

shocking since the kids from the Burlington High School did end up winning over their school (pg. 2).

Lastly, a study in Missouri shows that even after the Hazelwood case, only 8 percent of principles had to

change their procedures when it came to student run newspapers (pg. 4). This means that 92 percent of

principles in Missouri had already been censoring their newspapers way before Hazelwood even said they

were allowed to. Furthermore, in 1999 there was a State of the First Amendment survey. This survey

noted that 53 percent of the people that responded said that the press had too much freedom (pg. 3).

Another shocking statistic is that only 6 percent stated that the freedom of the press is the most important

freedom of the ones listed in the First Amendment (pg. 4). Lastly, 60 percent of the people that responded

said that high school student run newspapers should not be able to print stories about “controversial

issues” without the approval of the administrators of the school (pg. 5). This was so shocking because it

was an increase from 52 percent in the first survey, which was given in 1997 (pg. 5). Our First

Amendment might be in jeopardy if people are thinking that it gives too much freedom to people

(Kopenhaver). This is why, it is important that America gets this issue fixed, and soon.

On the other hand, colleges have also started to try and censor their own newspapers as well,

following the high schools that do so. This may be because they like the idea of being able to control what

their students write about their college through their own newspaper (Wilson). They could also want to
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censor their newspapers so that they don’t have to go through what the Burlington High School had to

deal with, for example the charges towards their director and the publicity in a bad way (DeSmet). The

court case that allows colleges to do this is the Hosty Vs. Carter, which was ruled 7-4 majority in favor of

allowing colleges to censor their own newspapers. The ruling in this court case set in stone that “...

administrators at public colleges have total control over subsidized student newspaper.”. This gives all the

power to the administrative team at public colleges to do as they wish with the student newspapers

(Wilson). If the administrative team at a college wanted to censor a story, they could without any

repercussions. This clearly allows them to ignore the First Amendment of the United States of America,

which is the point up for debate in this argumentative topic. Again, this issue needs fixed.

In conclusion, you can see that high schools do have a trend of censoring newspapers. But, this

also allows them to make sure there is nothing such as slander written in their own student run newspaper.

There are also clearly countless times that there has been a court case about schools being able to censor

their own newspapers. For the most part, they win, but it also conflicts with our First Amendment, which

some people don’t even feel is the most important one listed in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Lastly, the worst part of this is that even the colleges are catching on and now they are starting to censor

their students' newspapers as well. To leave off with, I hope this essay doesn’t get censored by my school,

because that happens now-a-days.

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Working Bibliography

DeSmet, Nicole Higgins. “Student Newspaper Censorship.” Burlington Free Press. 20 Sept. 2018

Kopenhaver, Lillian Lodge. “Students Learn About Free Press through Censored School

Newspapers.” Eric. n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2018

Kopenhaver, Lillian Lodge. “Nation’s High School Newspapers: Still Widely Censored” N/A:

N/A, 2000. Print

Powell, Avery. “Did BHS break the law by censoring student newspaper?” WCAX3. 14 Sept.

2018. Web. 20 Sept. 2018

Sims, Shannon. “My Article Was Censored. I Found Out Why.” The New York Times. n.d. 20

Sept. 2018

Wilson, John. “The Case of the Censored Newspaper.” InsideHigherEd. n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2018