Preparing Scholastic Press Advisers for Roles after Hazelwood Decision

The Supreme Court in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) allowed high school officials to set journalistic standards "higher than those demanded by some newspaper publishers ... in the 'real' world" (at 272) and to exercise prior restraint on publications that are not open public forums by policy or practice if the action is "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns" (at 273). Eveslage (1995) noted that the decision "essentially challenged publications advisers to teach rights and responsibilities, but implied the direction to take when it identified professionalism as the standard" (p. 3). The question of what publication advisers are teaching about student rights and professionalism of the scholastic press is of importance to college educators, who are responsible for preparing students to become knowledgeable high school journalism teachers and advisers. Public forum analysis Justice Byron White used a "public forum analysis" drawn from Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (1985) and Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association (1983) as the basis of his majority opinion in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Traditional public forums are those that have long been open to all expression. Limited forums are "created by government designation of a place or channel of communication for use by the public at large for assembly and speech, for use by certain speakers, or for the discussion of certain subjects," and the government must "intentionally open a non-traditional forum for public discourse" (Cornelius at 802). At both traditional and limited public forums, government restrictions must be "narrowly drawn" and serve a "compelling state interest." Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions are allowed if they are "content-neutral" and "narrowly drawn" and leave open alternative channels of communication (Perry at 45-46). A non-public forum is one that "is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication," and any government regulation in a non-public forum must be only "reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum and are viewpoint neutral" (Cornelius at 806). The Hazelwood majority determined that public schools are not traditional public forums and that the Hazelwood East Spectrum was not a limited public forum in practice. It stated: "The government does not create a public forum by inaction or by permitting limited discourse, but only by intentionally opening a non-traditional forum for public discourse" (Hazelwood at 267, quoting Cornelius, 1985, at 802). However, when the forum rationale had previously been used by courts in regard to a student publication (see Zucker v. Panitz, 1969, and Gambino v. Fairfax County School Board, 1977), the newspapers were found to be limited public forums for student expression. Justice William Brennan, author of the minority position in Hazelwood, stated that the school's control over the content of school-sponsored publications should be limited. He concluded that an earlier Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), should be the standard for scholastic press freedom cases. Prior to Hazelwood, the " Tinkerstandard was the `compelling reason' by which their (school officials') censoring actions would be measured" (SPLC, 1994, p. 36). Tinker stated that restrictions can be put on student speech only if the speech "materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others" (Tinker at 513). Until Hazelwood, courts had not ruled on whether prior restraint of scholastic publications for other types of content, such as libel and obscenity, was permissible (SPLC, 1985, p. 23). Though Brennan stated that the Court was deviating from precedent, he agreed with the Hazelwood majority that an educator may constitutionally censor material that is "ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced" or material that does not meet "high standards for . …