A daunting question has hovered over our nation for years with a history of ambiguous opinions: Do students shed their First Amendment rights at the school gate?
While many public officials, government authorities and even our Supreme Court justices have argued students do indeed shed their rights to free speech and free press at the edge of their school property, I have to disagree.
Perhaps the most controversial issues center around students’ rights to free press, specifically, student-run newspapers and publications. These entities in particular deserve protection from the muffling suffocation of our government.
High school and college journalists produce work rivaling their superiors in the professional field. Two high school reporters from California, Anumita Jain and Armaan Rashid filed a motion last year for access to sealed court documents with evidence of a controversial campaign video made by a peer running for student body president. An investigative reporting team at Kansas Pittsburgh High School discredited their new principal’s “inflated” resume and forced her resignation.
These are just two examples of high school students making waves in their communities for the greater good. In both of these situations, students are using their right of free press to shine light on troublesome realities in their cities. Without access to these rights, communities would be robbed of the truth.
There is a common notion students have the responsibility to say only positive things about their educational institutions. However, while students should undoubtedly respect their educators, they have no duty to say only favorable things. The job of every journalist––and citizen, for that matter––is to shed the light of truth and ask questions to hold authoritative figures accountable.
A terrifying scenario in which school censorship breached students’ rights to tell the truth occurred recently before the eyes of Frank D. LeMonte, an attorney and professor of media law at the University of Florida.
LeMonte was fighting for students’ rights in censorship cases when a student’s political column was rejected. The school superintendent told him the column was withdrawn because it “might cause passionate conversations.”
What is news if not to cause “passionate conversations” amongst the public? In a democracy, the people have the right to use their voices. If these voices are silenced, I dare say the nation we live in is in fact not a democracy at all.
Universities across the U.S. have also been caught up in the battle of free press vs. unjust censorship. Liberty University, a well-known religious institution, recently fired two student editors with a history of disagreeing with university ideals and policies.
After a new newspaper staff was arranged, Bruce Kirk, Liberty’s dean of the school of communication and digital content, told the young journalists, “Your job is to keep the LU reputation and the image as it is. Don’t destroy the image of LU. Pretty simple, ok?”
The job of journalists is not to protect images and reputations. The job of journalists is to investigate, ask questions and shine a spotlight on hard issues.
In 2016, the editor-in-chief of the University Daily Kansan sued the university after the newspaper’s funding was cut because of its coverage. The paper was hit with a $45,000 annual reduction after an editorial was published criticizing the student government.
In the monumental case, Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier, our Supreme Court told us it is more important to avoid political controversy than to protect the right of freedom of the press.
This is a much bigger issue than protecting the future of journalism. Our country needs citizens willing to ask hard questions and participate in the current events going on around them.
I do not need to speak of the overwhelming evidence journalists have uncovered to protect our nation and its people. In order to unveil the truth, they had to be willing to hold people in positions of power accountable for their actions.
When we become a country which allows journalists and students to be silenced, we will no longer be a democratic, “free” nation.
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