From: dal3@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (dale.e.parson)
Subject: Re: Student Free Speech: Case Law
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 18:36:16 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.113623.6683@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> wgatherg@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (William Gathergood) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.223747.10085@polari> pacific@polari.online.com writes:
>>     A question was raised in this newsgroup concerning court findings
>>that allow for free speech by students.  Tinker vs. Des Moins, which is
>>a case heard during the Viet Nam War, found that students have free
>>speech guarentees so long as it does not conflict with the educational
>>process.  This case is the cornerstone legal doctrine in this area.
>
>
>Much as I hate to say it, the long-range effects of the Kohlmeyer <spelling?> 
>case deal with this area.  It originally dealt with an article on teen 
>pregnancy in a Kansas school newspaper.  The principal refused to let them 
>distribute it.  State court supported students, Supreme court reversed it, 
>saying that the principal, as head of the school, is the publisher of the paper
>with editorial control; and producer of the school play with editorial control,
>and curriculum developer with editorial control over teacher material, etc.
>
>The results have been so sweeping that National student journalism 
>organizations have been fighting it by having individual states write 
>ammendments in their state constitutions, extending the rights of free speech 
>beyond what the federal courts have decreed... [stuff deleted]

One alternative to changing the law is to publish a paper outside the
jurisdiction of the principal. Back in 1971-72 I helped organize an
alternative high school newspaper staff that created a paper that outsold
the school sanctioned paper, with sufficient profits to support improvements
in printing process and materials. One by-product of our success was a
drastic drop in jounalism grades, teaching us a valuable lesson: grades
are garbage. I suppose the principal could have suppressed distribution
of the paper on school grounds, but monitoring distribution is tougher
than monitoring publication when you control the presses.

As I recall laws back then, the principal's authority in Pennsylvania
(and I imagine elsewhere in the States) derived from 'loco parentis',
meaning that in school the principal could assume any authority over students
that the parents could assume otherwise. Of course the principal was in
no way bound to respect limits that the parents themselves might have
observed in their exercise of legal authority. I don't think freedom of
speech means much when loco parentis is the guiding principle.

Mandatory institutionalization is fundamentally at odds with any notion
of rights. When bureaucrats control kids' bodies and many kids' minds,
speech becomes pretty valueless. The best first step is to get out.
Home school.


Dale Parson, Bell Labs, dale@mhcnet.att.com

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|    "These words are too solid, they don't move fast enough           |
|     to catch the blur in the brain that flies by, and is gone..."    |
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|     Suzanne Vega                                                     |
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