#23 Freedom of Speech - Student Newspapers and Yearbooks

When creating an article for the school paper, some students may feel it is okay for them to write about a controversial topic, or include profanity in it. According to the case of Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, which brought the topic of freedom of speech in high school writing to court. The Supreme Court eventually decided that it was not against students' rights for the school board to keep them from placing a certain article in the school paper. High schools, not colleges, are allowed to punish and/or censor their students. In another case, a college board was furious about the format that a student editor had used on their college's yearbook. The board confiscated the yearbooks, but the student editor and others argued that this was against their first amendment right of free speech. In a backlash, the board claimed that because the yearbook was on a non-public forum, they had the right to keep the students from distributing the yearbooks. This case was Student Government Ass’n v. Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts and it eventually was decided by the Supreme Court that the rules that applied in high schools did not apply in colleges. And so the college board was defeated by the student government.