Hazelwood V. Kuhlmeier Case Summary

In the case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the question of whether a group of students’ rights under the first amendment are violated is asked. These students had written articles for their school newspaper, which they had then submitted for review to their advisor, who passed the articles on to the principal, Robert Reynolds. Reynolds found two articles concerning, and with the approval of his superiors, eradicated the two pages that these articles were on from that publication of the newspaper. The principal’s deletion of these articles did violate the students’ rights under the 1st Amendment. According to the 1st Amendment, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” This means that the people of the United States have the right to say whatever they want in what they print. This right extends within school, and since students have the same rights as every other citizen, their right in this situation is violated. Although this paper is …show more content…
According to the 14th Amendment, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This means that each citizen of the United States is equal and protected under the same laws, and holds the same rights and freedoms. Since the school newspaper operates as a public forum, the school principal, although a superior within the school, is not entitled to superiority over the writers of the paper in respect to censoring articles, especially without notifying the students. Although technically their superior, because the paper is not only part of the curriculum but a public piece of press, since the printing of these articles does not infringe upon anyone else’s rights or disrupt the functionality of school, Reynolds does not posses the right to censor the articles. The students and the principal, in this situation, are equals under the