hazelwoodvkuhlmeier

**Hazelwood et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al.**

 * (**SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1988)

D (Hazelwood School District) Robert Eugene Reynolds, the principal of Hazelwood East High School withheld two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983 issue of the Spectrum the school newspaper because he was concerned with the content of the articles P (Kuhlmeier et al. former high school students) Three former Hazelwood East students who were staff members of Spectrum, the school newspaper. They contend that school officials violated their First Amendment rights by deleting two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983, issue of Spectrum.
 * __Facts__**:

Whether Spectrum may appropriately characterized as a forum for public expression. No Whether the First Amendment requires a school to tolerate particular student speech. No
 * __Issues/Answers__**:

Legal Basis—The First Amendment and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) Rationale--First Amendment rights of students in the public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings, and must be applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment. The school newspaper here cannot be characterized as a forum for public expression. Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. The school principal acted reasonably in this case.
 * __Basis/Rationale__**:


 * __Notes__**:
 * //Hazelwood School District//** was a decision that held that curricular student that have not been established as for student expression are subject to a lower level of protection than independent student expression or newspapers established (by policy or practice) as forums for student expression. It was decided on, in favor of , overruling a reversal of a ruling.

For the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public school officials may impose some limits on what appears in school-sponsored student publications. The high school paper was published as part of a journalism class. The principal at Hazelwood usually reviewed the school paper before it was published, but in this case he deleted articles (two pages) the staff had written. One of the deleted articles covered the issue of student pregnancy and included interviews with three students who had become pregnant while attending school. (There was also an article about several students whose parents had been divorced, however their names were not disclosed in the article.) To keep the students' identity secret the staff used pseudonyms instead of the students' names. The principal said he felt the anonymity of the students was not sufficiently protected, the girls' discussion of their use or non-use of birth control was inappropriate for some of the younger students at the school, and that the student’s parents who were divorced should have been given an opportunity to respond to the remarks or consent to the publication. The students filed a lawsuit against the district. The trial court sided with the school and the appeals court sided with the students. By a vote of 5 to 3, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the school.