Censorship in school media Essay Example

some portions of the article, but the general message stayed the same. As I stated, journalism is what I plan to do as a part of my life, and therefore I have learned a lot about censorship in school publications. Through my own personal research, I have found out that school administrators do not have as much power over school publications as once thought. However, that wasn't enough for me.

I wanted to find out more. I wanted to find out what could be done to stop censorship, and how to take action if it occurs.I wanted to see what power, if any, school administrators have over student-run media outlets. I also wanted to find out more about the incident involving the Hazelwood School District in Missouri. To be quite frank, I wanted to find out anything and everything I could about censorship in school media.

Most of my research came from articles on line. I spent numerous hours on line searching for material from the Student Press Law Center and other valuable websites. However, I also used books from libraries and videotape on censorship in schools.The book that I used the most was written specifically about the Hazelwood School District event.

According to the book, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Censorship in School Newspapers, the principal of Hazelwood East High, Gene Reynolds, was receiving the paper before it went to press and had decided to cut the center spread (pages four and five) due to the content of it. However, none of the staff members were present and therefore did not know of the decision until the paper was released to the student body (5, 6).Sarah

Betsy Fuller, author of the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, also states that the Spectrum staff "intended to explore the issues from various perspectives, including statistics about teenage pregnancy; personal accounts of three pregnant Hazelwood East students; the difficulties of teenage marriage; teenage divorce rates; the impact of divorce on children; the reasons teenagers run away from home; juvenile delinquency; and newly proposed federal regulations requiring parents of minors to be notified if the minor received birth control advises or devices from a federally funded clinic.

Six different reporters researched the stories and wrote the articles that they hoped to publish" (10). According to the book Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier: Censorship in School Newspapers, Cathy Kuhlmeier, Leslie Smart and Leanne Tippett were all members of the Hazelwood Eash High School newspaper staff (6). The Spectrum staff members had done reports about teen dating as well as many other subjects prior to Gene Reynolds being named principal (Fuller 9). According to Fuller, Reynolds decided to send the paper to press without pages four and five.

He had explained all of this to the faculty advisor as well as his boss, but never mentioned any of it to the staff members. When it occurred to the staff that their principal had taken the middle section out due to content, they quickly went to him and asked why (18-19). The girls were under the impression that Reynolds and the board of education had censored their work. Kuhlmeier informed Robert Stergos, the former advisor of the Spectrum, of the situation and he had explained that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) could help (Fuller 20).According to The American Civil Liberties Union Freedom is Why

We're Here, their purpose is to battle civil liberties infringements when needed (1).

Since 1920 the ACLU has been protecting American's rights. Fuller wrote, "The staff at the ACLU for Eastern Missouri listened to what the girls had to say. Staff members agreed with them that Principal Reynolds' act of censorship may have violated their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and of the press" (21). After almost five years, the decision was made that the Hazelwood School District did not infringe on the staff member's rights (88).The court ruling had made a quick impact on other situations across the nation as well. A school in Florida did not want a story on sex counseling to be published and as soon as the Hazelwood ruling was announced, the principal of that school pulled it from the paper as soon as she heard the ruling.

The principal had delayed the publishing of the paper until after the ruling was final (101). Other schools felt that too much authority was given to them and thought that student's deserve to speak their mind freely (103).A district authority in Maryland informed other officials in that area there is no need to facilitate control of freedom of speech for any school employee or student (103). The decision continues to affect schools and student newspapers to this day. "Some believe there has been no charge; that schools that censored before Hazelwood continued to do so (103).

According to Fuller, other people have said that there are more journalists censoring themselves so they do not have to come up against any school officials' (103).According to the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), censorship

in school publications has increased greatly over the years. Fuller wrote that in 1998, 541 calls were made to the SPLC (105). Compare that to 1,376 in 1991 and 1,473 in 1993 (Fuller 105). On October 15, 1996 a student-produced television show titled Shades of Grey was to air its monthly edition (Censorship).

They were set to go live as they have in the past, but when the engineers called the central office they were told that there was no signal for them (Censorship).According to the video segment titled Censorship at Channel 60, the school district in Silverspring, Maryland disallowed this episode to be aired because references to God were debatable. In more recent years the SPLC has issued other reports indicating that censorship is on the rise. According to High school censorship calls up again in 1999, 1,624 cases were reported in 1999, up twenty-seven cases from 1998 (1).

The SPLC answered 777 questions relating to legal issues at the high school level in 1999 (High school censorship calls 1) and 719 in 1998 (High school censorship increases 1).High school censorship calls up again in 1999 also reported that 47 percent of all questions received relate to censorship issues at the high school level (1). Some of the more recent incidents dealing with censorship have occurred in Florida, California, Connecticut and even Pennsylvania (High school censorships increases 1). The event that took place in Pennsylvania was posted on the SPLC website.

According to the SPLC Spring 2000 Report Student's say principal's decision to confiscate newspapers stinks, the acting principal at Hatboro-Horsham High School locked all 1,200 copies of the newspaper and fired the adviser

(1-2).According to the Pennsylvania Administrative Code as reported on the SPLC website, students have the right and are free as editors of other newspapers to report the news and editorialize in their school papers. The report also suggests that student's have the capacity to follow any and all rules and guidelines and also suggests that they back their opinions with facts (1). In September 2000, the first editorial cartoon of the school year was censored in MoonBeams, my high school newspaper. Assistant Principal Mrs.

Julie Moore commented that the cartoon "contained a hidden vulgarity" which she would not permit to be published.In her opinion, Moore feels that anything offensive "would appear to be harmful words directed in such a fashion that may offend a student/group/staff that would cause unintentional wrongful messages. " Faculty Adviser for MoonBeams, Mrs. Amy Kostial, recalled one time when a former principal did not care for the word "crappy" in a CD review and made the reporter change it. She went on to say that the reporter "used about 10 very long, thesaurus-like words in its place.

.. it was pretty funny, and was quite a slap in the face" (Email interview).Through my research, I have found numerous other cases of censorship in high school publications in just about all of the 50 states.

More recently, censorship issues have included online publications as well. With the Internet becoming more and more popular, only time will tell how students will be censored in the future. After completing the research for my paper and finding that since the Hazelwood case censorship has increased, I have come to the realization that no matter how hard

student journalists and their advisers try, school officials will always find a way to block what is said or published.Being very involved in journalism at Gannon, I could not imagine what the three girls from Hazelwood had to deal with for over five years in court.

Though I am done researching, I wish I had found more information on other types of censorship such as speeches, bulletin boards, posters, etc. Censorship, as depicted from my paper, is here to stay. It will always occur and there will always be battles like the Hazelwood case to deal with. Censorship has and will continue to change since the Hazelwood court case.