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 MoreA Praxis about journalism?
What do YOU know?
by Candace Bowen
Chemistry teachers take a test showing they know electronic configurations based on the periodic table. History teachers demonstrate what they know about the early river valley civilizations. And the list goes on.
But how often and where do journalism teachers have to prove their knowledge?
Not too often, if the Praxis content area tests are any measure. There has been no such test for future journalism teachers until recently, though the list of tests for those teaching other sorts of courses is long.
First, full disclosure: I know nothing about electronic configurations and even less about early river valley civilizations. I don’t even know too much about the Praxis content area tests.
But the latter isn’t my fault. As soon as I heard about a month ago that such a test exists, my goal was to find out about it.
Read More‘Whad’ya know?’
New teachers should answer, ‘Law & ethics!’
by Candace Bowen
As Wisconsin Public Radio’s Michael Feldman asks each week, “Whad’ya know?” Sadly, even some secondary school journalism teachers with proper credentials can answer, like Feldman’s audience, “Not much!”
At least that appears to be true when it comes to law and ethics.
And some teachers don’t know much because no one required them to learn much to get their jobs.
Case #1: My own state — Ohio — has Integrated Language Arts licensure, a common sort of “mile wide, half inch deep” curriculum that means pre-service teachers study something about English, speech, theater and journalism, but not necessarily much about any one of those.
In addition, the state Department of Education approves each college’s curriculum, but anecdotal evidence indicates some higher education programs don’t stick to what they submitted for approval more than 10 years ago. Thus students graduate with little or no journalism, and what they do have is often only beginning newswriting.
Read MoreA checklist for ethical news values
by Marina Hendricks
As I wrote this, Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast. A week remains until the election in which U.S. voters will choose their leader for the next four years. The Detroit Tigers played the San Francisco Giants for a World Series title. And I’m willing to bet there’s something interesting happening in your community.
News events, whether they are national or local in scope, offer excellent opportunities to help students assess their own journalistic practices and think about how to improve their work.
With the following list from “Media Ethics: Issues and Cases” by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, students can evaluate coverage of a major news story. Each point on the checklist also should be considered in light of what students can apply to their own reporting, writing and editing.
Ethical News Values
• Accuracy – Are the facts correct? Has the reporter used the right words? What are some examples of right and wrong words? Is information in the proper context? What biases could the reporter have brought to the story?
• Confirmation – Does the story hold up inside and outside the newsroom? Are there holes?
• Tenacity – Has the reporter gone to extra effort on the story, or merely followed the pack? Is there depth to the story? If so, what are some examples from the story that point to depth?
• Dignity – Has the reporter treated the subject of the story with respect? Have the others involved with publication of the story – photographers, editors, videographers, designers, ad sales representatives – done so?
• Reciprocity – Do you think the reporter has taken a “do unto others” approach with respect to the subject of the story? Does the story pander to the lowest common denominator? What is important in this story from the audience’s perspective? Has the reporter addressed that?
• Sufficiency – Has the reporter had adequate resources to cover this story? Why or why not?
• Equity – Have all sources and subjects been treated in the same manner? Have all sides of the story been told? What are they?
• Community – How does the community benefit from this story? How does the media outlet benefit?
• Diversity – Are all parts of the audience represented in this story? If not, who is missing?
Regular study of news coverage by other journalists helps students learn what works, what doesn’t and what they themselves can do better – all in the safe context of analyzing someone else’s stories.
And there’s no need to wait for a huge storm, four-year election or big game, because news happens all the time.
About this series of posts
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Don’t let death derail your publication
by Mary Kay Downes
The loss of any student is a tragic event either through sickness, accident or suicide.
Often times staffs are shocked when events such as this occur and frozen into either inaction or precipitous action. They ask, “Do we cover this?” They ask, “How do we cover this?” They ask, “Should we call the parents?”
All of these are questions which can be taken care of by establishing a policy by the editorial board for inclusion in the staff manual having to do with death. We have a policy in our yearbook staff manual and it precludes any type of memorial page.
We include a picture of the deceased student in the senior section of the yearbook the year they would have graduated. It is in a box with year of birth and death. If a faculty member dies, we include a similar box in the faculty section of the current year’s book.
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