Eager to learn, students find Hazewlood as inspiration, provocation to ‘ruffle feathers’
by Don Bott
Hazelwood stories: My favorite part of teaching Journalism 1-2, the beginning class made up mostly of freshmen, is the unit on press law and ethics. Up until that point, we focus mostly on writing for various pages. A few in the class by this point are beginning to grasp the power of journalism. It is not merely self-expression but something more meaningful. These students want to be on staff next year.
This is the time in the year when I outline the significant rights — and responsibilities — that high school journalists have, especially those in California.
Students become fascinated to learn about something as fundamental as First Amendment rights. They marvel at what a brother and sister went through at an Iowa high school long before they were born. My students, who mostly see clothing as a matter of fashion, are now thinking about a black armband and the abstract notion of protest. They then shudder to see how student voice, protected in one historic Supreme Court ruling, could be challenged some 20 years later because of articles that potentially “make the school look bad.” This is history they can relate to.
Advisers in California should not have to worry about Hazelwood, about a principal as “publisher.” Sure enough, my 20-plus years of advising newspapers have been free of administrative intrusion. Still, in this favorable atmosphere, educating students is almost more important. With more rights comes greater responsibility — for the adviser and for the students.
Curiously, I have found that students are often timid when it comes to how far their reach should be in a story. Regardless of law or ed code provisions, many are reluctant to offend. They want to look good and sound good and not be seen in any way that is bad. Rather than wait for some outside authority to stop them, they are too willing to censor themselves. The boldness of a staff from Hazelwood East High School must serve as inspiration, provocation: Find the story out there that is compelling, the story that must be told, the story that will ruffle feathers.
The legal restrictions of Hazelwood, I like to say, have “never applied to California.” But Hazelwood has always mattered in this state. Students need to be educated, and sadly so must many educators, even administrators.
As I write this piece, I am closing out the unit on press law and ethics, a unit that gets longer every year. Students are more excited about journalism than they have been all year.
Read MoreHazelwood made some better teachers, journalists; others suffered from fear
by Nancy Hastings
Hazelwood stories: It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years since the Hazelwood decision came in…. it seems like only last week when the phone calls poured in from local media and area high schools asking for my opinions on what this would mean and my help to defend student rights from administrators already trying to clamp the voice of criticism.
I always thanked my lucky stars that I worked in a school district and community that supported our student media. While we didn’t always agree, the administration believed in us to act responsibly. In fact, my principal used to tell me that he’d rather answer questions from student journalists than the local media, because at least the students quoted him accurately.
I do think Hazelwood made us better journalists. We still tackled stories that mattered, but we became more conscious of the need to cover all sides of the story as accurately as possible. The students became better critical thinkers as they debated issues and backed up their beliefs. The decision encouraged more open communication as editors scheduled regular meetings with administrators to discuss subjects that mattered to both sides. In fact, they often invited the principal to attend Editorial Board meetings when the staff had concerns they wanted to discuss.
I think Hazelwood in some ways made me a better teacher. I started teaching in the Tinker era when… “students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates.” I could no longer take those rights for granted. I had to fully understand student press law and ethics, so that my students could decipher their rights and responsibilities. These students in turn, used that knowledge to help educate each new young administrator who believed students had no rights to criticize any school decision or activity. As students became more proficient in understanding the pedagogical mission of schools, they became more confident as reporters and writers.
Unfortunately, not all student journalists have been so lucky. Area administrators have confiscated newspapers that criticized a coach, have shut down a publication that called for the school library to be open longer after hours to allow students to research, and set have set up prior review because student journalists criticized school policies. New advisers with little journalism background have become controlled PR tools of their administrations, fearful of covering anything that matters. So many staffs self-censored themselves, knowing someone is watching over their shoulders.
I remember that cold January day as if it were last week. Many journalism programs have thrived on the strength of a responsible student voice. Unfortunately many more have suffered under the misconceptions of the Hazelwood decision.
Read MoreHazelwood leaves too much room
for limitation of student voices
by Ellen Austin
Hazelwood stories: I began my journalism advising career in Minnesota, a Hazelwood state. Teaching at a small public school, the shadow of Hazelwood was a reality. My principal wanted to read the paper in advance, and tried to use Hazelwood as a justification for that request. I was lucky that I had some great mentors to call at NSPA in Minneapolis and at other successful newspapers in the area who coached me.
It took several conversations to bring my principal to a place where “reviewing” the paper became, “Please get me a copy before everyone else reads it, so I know what’s happening if the phone’s start ringing.”
I was lucky: I had a reasonable principal whose major concern was doing his job well for the school at large. He was not a martinet, and he was comfortable with the idea that students were learning firsthand the tools of democracy through their work on their school paper.
Not every student article shines as a sample of great writing and bias-free prose. Not every student article remains fair to the community about which it is written. But not allowing students to practice their right to free speech and freedom of the press in our nation’s schools is akin to never letting a driver practice driving a car before handing her keys and turning her loose on an interstate at the age of 18.
A ruling like Hazelwood, with its ambiguities and wide latitude of interpretation, leaves too much room for an administrator to create a vise-like grip on the voices of students.
Democracy, like driving, requires practice and a safe place for that practice.
Hazelwood ages, but the online world continues to morph and expand, The restrictive powers granted to school officials through Hazelwood can allow the squelching of trained, guided, and curricular work in journalism in a school setting.
But, by disabling the campus option for debate and discussion, by removing a trained teacher who can provide ethics training and consistency in writing instruction, and by preventing an adult sounding board for the discussion of issues being discussed, students can easily choose to circumvent school papers and websites completely, and instead go online through any number of sites that live outside the purview of the school’s reach — and outside the rules of good journalistic practices.
The sorrow I have about Hazelwood’s chilling effect goes beyond the students, however; I’ve watched dozens of passionate, skilled, well-trained adviser colleagues forced out of their classrooms by fearful or angry administrators in retaliation for work — usually, the ideas of the work — published in a school newspaper. Another longtime adviser in a nearby state resigned just last week, posting a farewell note to our national online group about her fatigue in trying to do a good job in the face of constant restriction.
This country’s foundations were laid with fractious debates and intense discussions. “Being nice and avoiding controversy” is not language found in our constitutional amendments. What does abide in our Constitution’s language is the emphasis on informed, civil debate and on a citizenry that not only has rights but the freedom to exercise those rights.
Ellen Austin is the 2012 Dow Jones News Fund Journalism Teacher of the Year.
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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)
Hazelwood: 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.
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