Opinion ID: 406149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Students' First Amendment Rights

Text: 17 The first question presented by this appeal is whether newspaper writers for a high school publication, and vis-a-vis their faculty advisor, 2 have a constitutional right to be free from pre-publication review by the school principal. The district court found that the defendants had no impermissible motive in seeking to terminate plaintiff's employment and therefore necessarily concluded that the rights of the high school students had not been infringed. This court agrees and affirms the trial court's conclusion that the principal's actions did not violate constitutionally protected rights. 18 It is now well-established that secondary students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 736, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). However, these rights are not coextensive with those of adults and may be modified or curtailed by school policies that are reasonably designed to adjust those rights to the needs of the school environment. See Williams v. Spencer, 622 F.2d 1200, 1205 (4th Cir. 1980). 19 Writers on a high school newspaper do not have an unfettered constitutional right to be free from pre-publication review. In fact, the special characteristics of the high school environment, particularly one involving students in a journalism class that produces a school newspaper, call for supervision and review by school faculty and administrators. Under the precise circumstances of this case administrative review of a small number of sensitive articles for accuracy rather than for possible censorship or official imprimatur does not implicate first amendment rights. 3 20 In the high school setting, school officials and teachers must be accorded wide latitude over decisions affecting the manner in which they educate students. 4 The role of the judiciary in the supervision of public education, therefore, is limited and arises only where the resolution of conflicts in school administration clearly involves constitutional values. Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104, 89 S.Ct. 266, 270, 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968); Diamond, The First Amendment and Public Schools: The Case Against Judicial Intervention, 59 Tex.L.Rev. 477 (1981). 21 In the present case, the school possessed a substantial educational interest in teaching young, student writers journalistic skills which stressed accuracy and fairness. While appellant properly stressed the value of a free press, the school principal also was acting within appropriate bounds when he emphasized the concomitant need for a responsible press. When Dr. Ahee informed appellant and his journalism class that certain articles in the school-sponsored newspaper must be reviewed for accuracy, 5 he properly exercised his supervisorial authority to read those occasional articles about subjects so sensitive that it would be derelict to accord untrained, adolescent writers absolute freedom from pre-publication review for accuracy. 22 Accordingly, the lower court properly recognized that the principal's conduct was substantially related to the educational process and that the appellant had not been denied rights guaranteed by the first and fourteenth amendments.