Supreme Court Case Brief: Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier
Story:
This case involved former East High School students who were members of their school’s newspaper. The petitioners filed suit in Federal District Court; the students alleged that their First Amendment rights were violated due to the deletion of two pages from a particular issue of the school paper, The Spectrum. The principal, Robert Reynolds, objected to a story on teen pregnancy and another article about divorce. After reviewing the page proofs for the May 13, 1983 issue of The Spectrum, the principal felt there was insufficient time to edit the articles and meet the publication deadline, and therefore chose to omit the pages containing the material he found objectionable. With the decision to not publish the questionable articles, Principal Reynolds also removed five other columns that appeared on the same pages. The principal consulted board members, his supervisors, before reaching his final decision. The writers were not able to propose a remedy since Reynolds did not advise the students of his plan for the publication. One editor and two reporters from the Spectrum brought a claim …show more content…
White, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Antonin Scalia. The majority opinion was written by Justice White. The majority held that the First Amendment rights of the students were not violated. Journalism II was a class that met during regular school hours. Students received grades and academic credit for Journalism II just as they did for other classes in the same term. Journalism was taught by a teacher on staff with Hazelwood School District. All the expenses incurred for the class were paid from the general budget funds for the district. Stories were written by students; however, the editorial control rested solely with the journalism teacher. Ultimately, the Spectrum had to pass the review of Principal Reynolds. Precedent held