Hazelwood Spectrum Case Study

1988 found a high school journalism class challenging whether or not they had their First Amendment violated when their freedom of speech was challenged. The Hazelwood Spectrum was a newspaper done by East Hazelwood High School in the Hazelwood School District and students whom completed the class Journalism I were able to work for the schcaool newspaper as a Journalism II student. Kathy Kuhimeier and two other journalism students wrote articles on pregnancy and divorce, which were declined by the principal (Oyez, 2015). The school newspaper was run by a highly respected teacher who resigned from his position in April due to the fact that he had accepted another job. The last few months of the school year the school hired a substitute teacher.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the principal's actions did not violate the students' free speech rights. The Court noted that the paper was sponsored by the school and, as such, the school had a legitimate interest in preventing the publication of articles that it deemed inappropriate and that might appear to have the imprimatur of the school. Specifically, the Court noted that the paper was not intended as a public forum in which everyone could share views; rather, it was a limited forum for journalism students to write articles pursuant to the requirements of their Journalism II class, and subject to appropriate editing by the school (Haynes, 2003). Points that were also brought up that I heard while listening to the transcripts also noted that the school pays for the newspapers to be printed that he can also have final say. That did not come into him making his final decision, but that was talked about a lot in the
I image in every high school journalism class when an article is declined access into the school newspaper because it may be pushing the envelope most students will cry “freedom of speech.” I wonder how many of the school newspaper editors and/or principals are aware of this case and use it as a reference when talking to their students on why the article is being withheld. People still battle this issue every day. Yes we do have freedom of speech, but people need to be smart in how they use it. Teachers, principals, and many other professionals have lost their job over Facebook statues or a tweet. Recently, federal law just announced that you cannot lose your job over a Facebook post. The law just said that Facebook posts are protected under free speech. I wonder how that has effected the people that have already lost their jobs due to that issue. Are they able to get their old jobs back? The argument over free speech on Facebook posts has employers saying that it may affect their business or it makes the school look bad. Which makes it hard to argue against that in court. It will be interesting to see once the dust settles what the court decides on what is and isn’t ok when posting