The Spectrum Case Study

Student produced school publications are a common creative outlet, providing news and entertainment sources for the student body, by the student body. These publications, whether they are newspapers, newsletters, magazines, or informative flyers, act as a way for school students to express themselves in an educational manner, while also bringing up topics of concern among teens in an informative and helpful way. This was the concept behind Hazelwood East High School 's student run newspaper, The Spectrum, which was written, edited, and published by the school 's journalism class every three weeks during the 1982-1983 school year. As an outlet of for students to speak about personal issues, The Spectrum became a catalyst for a heated debate …show more content…
As a result of this, Reynolds chose to publish a four-page newspaper instead of a six-page one paper. He omitted the newspaper pages that contained the two controversial stories. This, however, resulted in the removal of seven articles from the paper, rather than just two. The principal did not inform the students about his decision, and they did not find out about the removal of the pages until the paper was distributed in school. In response to this, the paper editor, Cathy Kuhlmeier, along with reporters Leslie Smart and Leanne Tippett filed suit in January 1984, with the help of the American Civil Liberties …show more content…
Kuhlmeier Supreme Court decision of 1988 was a landmark in the path of student rights, particularly First Amendment rights, in schools. The case was brought upon by students at Hazelwood East High School, who felt that their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were being violated by their principal. Principal Reynolds removed pages containing controversial articles from the newspaper without informing the journalism class in charge of the newspaper, which the students felt was a form of unfair censorship. When the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, the majority ruling was in favor of the Hazelwood School District, which became a hot topic for students and educators at the time. The line between appropriate and inappropriate journalism was becoming more defined, along with a growth of rights in the hands of educators to edit and censor harmful or seemingly inappropriate material from school sponsored forums. These issues are still present to this day, with media becoming more accessible in varying forms, highlighting the gray area in which the boundaries of school censorship and student rights currently