Protect student journalism.
Student journalists are high achievers. Study after study has confirmed the correlation between participation in student journalism and reduced dropout rates, improved standardized-test scores, and greater college readiness. Working on a student newspaper or a student news broadcast develops the foundational communication and critical-thinking skills that employers highly value, and it is a pathway to engagement in the civic life of the community and the world, both for the journalist and for the audience.
You would assume that school administrators would embrace and nurture this powerful learning tool. But you would be wrong. A dozen times a day, thousands of times a year, the telephone at the Student Press Law Center rings with the story of a student who was told that her story, column or photograph cannot be published because it will “make the school look bad.”
Not long ago, we received one such call from a high-school student in Kansas, who was told – by her principal, and then by the superintendent – that her newspaper editorial was too negative and too controversial, and could not be published even after she acceded to their requests and rewrote it. And what was the student’s crime? She questioned why her school’s English classes taught only literature and no longer taught grammar, which would be more valuable preparation for taking standardized tests. This “zero tolerance for dissent” mentality is rampant in our schools. It is causing young people to throw up their hands and abandon journalism altogether, and it is teaching the corrosive civics lesson that government officials get to decide what is said about them.
Seven states have declared by statute that student media outlets are to be maintained as student-run forums for the discussion of student ideas. In none of those states has learning ground to a halt or have schools been buffeted by libel suits from journalism run amok. To the contrary, the quality of journalism has flourished, because well-trained students who take pride in running their own newspapers learn how to make responsible decisions. Three states, most recently California, have taken the extra step and legislatively protected journalism teachers against retaliation for what their students say or write. Advocates have been forced to turn to the states, because the federal courts are abdicating their role in checking abuses of power by school administrators.
Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case that students do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they enter the schoolhouse. That watershed ruling is today being eroded by federal judges who reflexively defer to even the most unreasonable disciplinary overreaction to student speech. Increasingly, courts are even permitting schools to discipline students for using blogs and Web pages to criticize the school off-campus on their personal time. This frightening trend stands the Tinker case on its head: students not only lack First Amendment rights in school, but by virtue of their student status, never in any place at any time can be safe in commenting about their school. In the eyes of some federal courts, it literally is the law that a student could constitutionally be expelled from school for going to the local TV station to expose a scandal that a corrupt principal stopped her from publicizing in the campus newspaper. Even prison inmates are afforded more rights.
The next president must appoint courageous judges who will make our schools safe places for the exchange of ideas. No one advocates that students be given free run of the school, or be protected against discipline if they disrupt class or threaten violence. But the pendulum of deference has swung too far. With professional journalism outlets slashing staff, the watchdog role of student journalists in holding our schools accountable for their performance is more important than ever. The next president should reaffirm that Tinker is still the law of the land, and place on the bench judges who respect and honor its precedent, not radical judicial activists bent on rewriting it.
This post was submitted by Frank D. LoMonte.
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