In May of 2022, student journalists at Northwest High School in Nebraska were told by district leaders that their student newspaper program would be shut down. The move came after the publication of a Pride issue that included articles about LGBTQ+ subjects, including an editorial opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. (The Northwest Public superintendent, Jeff Edwards, said the newspaper’s closure was an “administrative” decision).
In Arkansas, school officials physically ripped pages out of all the yearbooks students had created, which included a timeline of major events from that year such as the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. According to NPR, “East End School District Superintendent Heidi Wilson justified the move by citing ‘community backlash.’” In Vermont, a high school principal ordered the school newspaper to remove an article from their website on alleged professional misconduct by a member of the school’s administration, though the article was eventually reinstated, according to the Student Press Law Center (SPLC).
One principal in Texas censored student articles about curriculum changes, a school bonding activity, and, of all things, a cancelled senior class movie night. He then banned all editorials from the student newspaper and chose not to renew the contract of the newspaper’s teacher advisor, according to an article from the SPLC.
These incidents from the past few years are far from isolated. Since the 1988 Supreme Court case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, administrators have had near total authority to censor high school publications sponsored by the school when the administrators have a vague “legitimate pedagogical concern.” Some school leaders have taken full advantage of that authority, preventing students from reporting on stories that could potentially reflect negatively on the school.
But student journalists are fighting back.
Since the Hazelwood decision — and with increasing momentum in recent years — high school and college students from around the country have flocked to their state legislatures to advocate for “New Voices” laws. These laws restrict the ability of public school administrators to arbitrarily censor student publications unless their articles fail to meet proper ethical and legal protocols, such as being libelous. To date, 17 states have passed New Voices laws on a broadly bipartisan basis. Each state’s law varies in specifics, but they all do one critical thing: ensure students have the press freedom they need to cover the most important topics in their schools and communities.
“In a world where there are fewer education reporters, we see that student journalists are the first line of education reporting, and they are being silenced,” said Hillary Davis, advocacy and organizing director at the SPLC. “New Voices laws ensure that when there is a need for schools to step in for health and safety reasons they can do that, and they can stop that publication, but otherwise student journalists are able to tell the stories that matter.”
Since Hazelwood, the SPLC has been on the frontline of advocacy for New Voices laws by helping coordinate the work of student and teacher advocates.
“This is especially important in the digital age, because right now students can talk about whatever they want on social media in this quiet, unchecked environment,” added Davis. “But student journalists can’t [necessarily] shed light on the truth in their school publications, and so this really would bring back a sense of legitimacy to the school environment and truth that’s currently missing.”
Morgan Bricker is a teacher and student media advisor for Weir High School in Weirton, West Virginia, as well as the West Virginia State Director for the Journalism Education Association. West Virginia passed its New Voices law, Senate Bill 121, in 2023, after a multi-year effort by Bricker, student reporters in her classroom, and advocates around the state.
“When you have a powerful young writer and communicator, matched with a platform where they can reach their peers and beyond, then that gives them the leverage to advocate more powerfully,” said Bricker.
The West Virginia law also provides protection for advisors like Bricker, who can face professional consequences — such as dismissal, suspension, or reassignment — for defending the rights of the student journalists they mentor.
“I think it allows advisors to stand up for their students a little bit more,” added Bricker. “This bill exists and I can go to the office and say ‘You shouldn’t be challenging this, this bill exists, here’s what it says,’ and hopefully that will be the end of the line rather than having it go further to the board or beyond to a court case.”
One of Bricker’s students, 2023 West Virginia Student Journalist of the Year Lizzy Rhodes, used her journalism skills to inform the public about the legislation. In fact, she won the award in part because of advocacy efforts.
“I decided to write an op-ed and I shared it with my local paper,” said Rhodes. “And they ended up posting it [on their website] and it got a lot of attention, actually, which I think helped in turn pass the bill.”
As an advocate myself for the bill in West Virginia, I worked firsthand with student journalists who emailed and called their representatives, wrote to their communities about the necessity of the bill, and connected with policymakers in person to explain the barriers to press freedom students were facing. Legislators in the state publicly and privately confirmed it was students powerfully sharing their lived experiences which pushed the legislation forward intact.
States that passed these laws have seen them work in practice. In Washington, which has had a New Voices law since 2018, students at Steilacoom High School were able to publish an article about a lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct by one of their teachers, despite pressure from their district. In California, a student media advisor was protected from suspension after she defended the right of her students to publish a controversial article on teacher vaccine mandates, following pressure from advocacy groups grounded in the state’s law. In the Vermont incident I mentioned above, the order to remove an article on alleged misconduct by an administrator was rescinded by the school administration after being challenged by the student journalists.
It’s obvious that student reporters deserve the same free speech rights as everyone else in the media; to continue denying them those fundamental protections under the First Amendment is dangerous and antithetical to the purpose of public education in preparing young people for democratic citizenship. New Voices advocates have already done critical work on this issue, but in order to ensure no student is left behind, it will be necessary for many more advocates to join in the effort.
They need not be journalists themselves; all those who support free speech or local journalism are welcome. As Davis noted, “it is fascinating how much students mean to legislators and how excited legislators get when students pick up the phone and send an email and use their voice. They love it.”
Any governmental or educational system which tells its youth their voices must not be heard is a flawed one. It is far past time to ensure that student journalists have the rights and protections they deserve.
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