Seeking to cure the Hazelwood Blues
Weighted down by the Hazelwood blues? Try these resources. #25HZLWD http://jeasprc.org/seekingcure
One way to commemorate Hazelwood’s 25th anniversary is to take steps to control its effects. Here are our recommendations for an Action Plan to begin to find a cure for Hazelwood.
Additionally, check out the SPLC’s 5 simple steps you can make sure Hazelwood never turns 50.
Below the Action Plan you will find a daily listing of links we will post to Twitter and links that go to resources to assist you and your students to support the SPLC in its efforts to find the Hazelwood Cure.
1) Educate yourself about the importance of student press freedom. Why should students make decisions?
• For advisers: JEA guidelines for advisers — specifically areas 5-9 http://jea.org/home/for-educators/model-guidelines/
• For students: http://www.studentpress.org/nspa/wheel.html (seventh item down, specifically 1.4-1.6 and 5.2-5.3)
A Teacher’s Kit for curing Hazelwood
by Megan Fromm
January 13, 2013, we commemorate a bittersweet milestone in scholastic publications history: the 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. This decision institutionalized censorship in most public schools in America, and our students have been publishing in its shadow ever since.
This month, JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission seeks to re-engage teachers, students, administrators and local media in a discussion about Hazelwood’s deleterious effects on civic education and scholastic journalism. Similarly, the Student Press Law Center’s “Cure Hazelwood” campaign is aimed at making the public aware of Hazelwood’s ill effects on our nation’s schools. Together, we hope to encourage administrators and policymakers to reconsider a stifling decision that has long plagued our education system.
We hope you will use, during the coming weeks, our Teacher Kit with resources, lesson plans, and calls to action to energize your students and staffs to learn more about—and ultimately take action against— Hazelwood.
Read MoreHazelwood: Time to assess its impact
on educational process, civic engagement
by Randy Swikle
Former JEA Illinois state director
On the 25th anniversary (Jan. 13) of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision, the high school student press in America is at risk.
Instead of engaging students in the functions of American journalism, some school authorities want to relegate student news media to mere academic practice, to public relations facades for shaping school images and to vehicles for disseminating primarily the perspectives sanctioned by school administrators.
Such a controlling approach is contrary to the best interests of scholastic journalism, student welfare, community awareness, school accountability and core principles of American democracy. It leads to arbitrary censorship and even intimidation.
Too often autocratic control is prioritized over the school mission of empowering students and giving them well-defined autonomy within the parameters of law, order and journalistic ethics. Too often teaching obedience is prioritized over teaching responsibility, and clout rather than collaboration is used to resolve contention.
Read MoreHazelwood anniversary a good opportunity
for reflective thought, appropriate action
With Jan. 13, the 25th anniversary of the Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier decision, less than two weeks away, now is a good time to begin to plan how you and your students will note the event.
The Student Press Law Center has created two ways:
• One is a website that will provide resources, “horror stories” and more about the impact of Hazelwood on all students, not just on journalists.
• The second is a fact sheet about the 25th anniversary, with information and links students might find helpful in formulating news and oped pieces about the impact the decision has created.
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission will also join with the SPLC through a parallel series of teaching materials, activities and stories available in early January. Also look for Hazelwood-related tweets and the hashtag #25HZLWD from the commission and 45words, among others. We invite you to follow along with the materials and to join us with your involvement.
For sobering view of Hazelwood’s impact, check out Hazelwood’s 25th anniversary: ‘Educating ‘ a generation of sheep by David Cuillier.
Read More
Students, the First Amendment and the Supreme Court
by Jan Ewell
Permission granted to use at will for non-commercial purposes
The Bill of Rights and Schools
The First Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, became the law of the land in 1791, but 216 years later in 2007 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in Morse v. Frederick, “As originally understood, the Constitution does not afford students a right to free speech in public school.”
Thomas was an originalist, one who interprets the Constitution and the Bill of Rights according to what the Founding Fathers—the original authors—intended. Public education was virtually non-existent at the time. Thomas says the Founding Fathers did not intend the Bill of Rights to limit the power of schools and were not specifically concerned about the rights of public school students.
Fortunately for the student press, the other eight justices instead debated which First Amendment rights students should have. They looked at past court decisions for precedents, that is, earlier rulings by the court, that set a rule or pattern for deciding similar cases.
The precedent for almost 100 years was the 1833 Supreme Court decision in Barron v. Baltimore, which said the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. According to Barron, “Congress shall make no law” meant the United States government—Congress–could not make laws “abridging freedom of speech, or of the press.” States and cities—and school districts–could and did make laws that established religions, and abridged free speech and freedom the press, and limited the right to assemble. “A local school teacher was not Congress within the meaning of `Congress shall make no law,’” said David L. Hudson Jr. in Let the Students Speak! Only the federal government was forbidden to make such laws.
The Supreme Court began to apply the Bill of Rights to the laws and practices of states starting in 1925 with Gitlow v. New York. By 1965, in Gideon v. Wainwright, the court indicated that all forms of government—not just the federal government–were restrained by the Constitution and its amendments, including the Bill of Rights. Public schools are a form of government.
Read MoreTweet2: Choosing your forum status is like choosing the best medicine
Which forum? Best prescription to cure Hazelwood is open forum for student expression.
http://jeasprc.org/choosing-forum…-best-medicine/ #25HZLWD
Establishing your student media as open forums for student expression – not closed or limited forums – can make a huge difference in developing a cure of Hazelwood. The best forum is like preventative medicine. The worst is like being exposed to active disease cultures. The information and resources below can help you on the road to wellness.
The information below is broken into several categories:
• Deciding which forum best serves your students – and your community
• Importance of designated forum status
• Questions to consider when setting up your forum status
• Questions to ask those who want to limit the forum
• Additional resources (Forum definitions, List of designated open forums, CSJ Forum PowerPoint, CSJ Forum Application)