The following, with the exception of some introductory material, legal citations, and footnotes, is the text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority and dissenting opinions in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier.
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the extent to which educators may exercise editorial control over the contents of a high-school newspaper produced as part of the school’s journalism curriculum.
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II
Students in the public schools do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). They cannot be punished merely for expressing their personal views on the school premises--whether “in the cafeteria, or on the playing field, or on the campus during the authorized hours,"--unless school authorities have reason to believe that such expression will “substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students.”
We have nonetheless recognized that the First Amendment rights of students in the public schools “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings,” Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986), and must be “applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.” New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985). A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its “basic educational mission,” even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school. Accordingly, we held in Fraser that a student could be disciplined for having delivered a speech that was “sexually explicit” but not legally obscene at an official school assembly, because the school was entitled to “disassociate itself” from the speech in a manner that would demonstrate to others that such vulgarity is “wholly inconsistent with the ‘fundamental values’ of public-school education.” We thus recognized that "[t]he determination of what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate properly rests with the school board,” rather than with the federal courts. It is in this context that respondents’ First Amendment claims must be considered.
A
We deal first with the question whether Spectrum may appropriately be characterized as a forum for public expression. The public schools do not possess all of the attributes of streets, parks, and other traditional public forums that “time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.” Hence, schools facilities may be deemed to be public forums only if school authorities have “by policy or by practice” opened those facilities “for indiscriminate use by the general public,” or by some segment of the public, such as student organizations. If the facilities have instead been reserved for other intended purposes, “communicative or otherwise,” then no public forum has been created, and school officials may impose reasonable restrictions on the speech of students, teachers, and other members of the school community. ...
The policy of school officials toward Spectrum was reflected in Hazelwood School Board Policy 348.51 and the Hazelwood East Curriculum Guide. Board Policy 348.51 provided that "[s]chool-sponsored publications are developed within the adopted curriculum and its educational implications in regular classroom activities.” The Hazelwood East Curriculum Guide described the Journalism II course as a “laboratory situation in which the students publish the school newspaper applying skills they have learned in Journalism I.” The lessons that were to be learned from the Journalism II course, according to the Curriulum Guide, included development of journalistic skills under deadline pressure, “the legal, moral, and ethical restrictions imposed upon journalists within the school community,” and “responsibility and acceptance of criticism for articles of opinion.” Journalism II was taught by a faculty member during regular class hours. Students received grades and academic credit for their performance in the course.
School officials did not deviate in practice from their policy that production of Spectrum was to be part of the educational curriculum and a “regular classroom activit[y].” The district court found that Robert Stergos, the journalism teacher during most of the 1982-83 school year, “both had the authority to exercise and in fact exercised a great deal of control over Spectrum.” ... The district court thus found it “clear that Mr. Stergos was the final authority with respect to almost every aspect of the production and publication of Spectrum, including its content.” Moreover, after each Spectrum issue had been finally approved by Stergos or his successor, the issue still had to be reviewed by Principal Reynolds prior to publication. Respondents’ assertion that they had believed that they could publish “practically anything” in Spectrum was therefore dismissed by the district court as simply “not credible.” ...
The evidence relied upon by the court of appeals in finding Spectrum to be a public forum, is equivocal at best. For example, Board Policy 348.51, which stated in part that "[s]chool-sponsored student publications will not restrict free expression or diverse viewpoints within the rules of responsible journalism,” also stated that such publications were “developed within the adopted curriculum and its educational implications.” One might reasonably infer from the full text of Policy 348.51 that school officials retained ultimate control over what constituted “responsible journalism” in a school-sponsored newspaper. Although the Statement of Policy published in the September 14, 1982, issue of Spectrum declared that “Spectrum, as a student-press publication, accepts all rights implied by the First Amendment,” this statement, understood in the context of the paper’s role in the school’s curriculum, suggests at most that the administration will not interfere with the students’ exercise of those First Amendment rights that attend the publication of a school-sponsored newspaper. It does not reflect an intent to expand those rights by converting a curricular newspaper into a public forum. Finally, that students were permitted to exercise some authority over the contents of Spectrum was fully consistent with the Curriculum Guide objective of teaching the Journalism II students “leadership responsibilities as issue and page editors.” A decision to teach leadership skills in the context of a classroom activity hardly implies a decision to relinquish school control over that activity. In sum, the evidence relied upon by the court of appeals fails to demonstrate the “clear intent to create a public forum,” that existed in cases in which we found public forums to have been created. School officials did not evince either “by policy or by practice,” any intent to open the pages of Spectrum to “indiscriminate use,” by its student reporters and editors, or by the student body generally. Instead, they “reserve[d] the forum for its intended purpos[e],” as a supervised learning experience for journalism students. Accordingly, school officials were entitled to regulate the contents of Spectrum in any reasonable manner. It is this standard, rather than our decision in Tinker, that governs this case.
B
The question whether the First Amendment requires a school to tolerate particular student speech--the question that we addressed in Tinker--is different from the question whether the First Amendment requires a school affirmatively to promote particular student speech. The former question addresses educators’ ability to silence a student’s personal expression that happens to occur on the school premises. The latter question concerns educators’ authority over school-sponsored publications, theatrical productions, and other expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school. These activities may fairly be characterized as part of the school curriculum, whether or not they occur in a traditional classroom setting, so long as they are supervised by faculty members and designed to impart particular knowledge of skills to student participants and audiences.
Educators are entitled to exercise greater control over this second form of student expression to assure that participants learn whatever lessons the activity is designed to teach, that readers or listeners are not exposed to material that may be inappropriate for their level of maturity, and that the views of the individual speaker are not erroneously attributed to the school. Hence, a school may in its capacity as publisher of a school newspaper or producer of a school play “disassociate itself,” not only from speech that would “substantially interfere with [its] work ... or impinge upon the rights of other students,” but also from speech that is, for example, ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable for immature audiences. A school must be able to set high standards for student speech that is disseminated under its auspices--standards that may be higher than those demanded by some newspaper publishers or theatrical producers in the “real” world--and may refuse to disseminate student speech that does not meet those standards. In addition, a school must be able to take into account the emotional maturity of the intended audience in determining whether to disseminate student speech on potentially sensitive topics, which might range from the existence of Santa Claus in an elementary-school setting to the particulars of teen-age sexual activity in a high-school setting.
A school must also retain the authority to refuse to sponsor student speech that might reasonably be perceived to advocate drug or alcohol use, irresponsible sex, or conduct otherwise inconsistent with “the shared values of a civilized social order,” or to associate the school with any position other than neutrality on matters of political controversy. Otherwise, the schools would be unduly constrained from fulfilling their role as “a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment.”
Accordingly, we conclude that the standard articulated in Tinker for determining when a school may punish student expression need not also be the standard for determining when a school may refuse to lend its name and resources to the dissemination of student expression. Instead, we hold that educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.
This standard is consistent with our oft-expressed view that the education of the nation’s youth is primarily the responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of federal judges. It is only when the decision to censor a school-sponsored publication, theatrical production, or other vehicle of student expression has no valid educational purpose that the First Amendment is so “directly and sharply implicate[d],” as to require judicial intervention to protect students’ constitutional rights.
III
We also conclude that Principal Reynolds acted reasonably in requiring the deletion from the May 13 issue of Spectrum of the pregnancy article, the divorce article, and the remaining articles that were to appear on the same pages of the newspaper.
The initial paragraph of the pregnancy article declared that "[a]ll names have been changed to keep the identity of these girls a secret.’' The principal concluded that the students’ anonymity was not adequately protected, however, given the other identifying information in the article and the small number of pregnant students at the school. Indeed, a teacher at the school credibly testified that she could positively identify at least one of the girls and possibly all three. It is likely that many students at Hazelwood East would have been at least as successful in identifying the girls. Reynolds therefore could reasonably have feared that the article violated whatever pledge of anonymity had been given to the pregnant students. In addition, he could reasonably have been concerned that the article was not sufficiently sensitive to the privacy interests of the students’ boyfriends and parents, who were discussed in the article but who were given no opportunity to consent to its publication or to offer a response. The article did not contain graphic accounts of sexual activity. The girls did comment in the article, however, concerning their sexual histories and their use or non-use of birth control. It was not unreasonable for the principal to have concluded that such frank talk was inappropriate in a school-sponsored publication distributed to 14-year-old freshmen and presumably taken home to be read by students’ even younger brothers and sisters.
The student who was quoted by name in the version of the divorce article seen by Principal Reynolds made comments sharply critical of her father. The principal could reasonably have concluded that an individual publicly identified as an inattentive parent--indeed as one who chose “playing cards with the guys” over home and family--was entitled to an opportunity to defend himself as a matter of journalistic fairness. ...
Principal Reynolds testified credibly at trial that, at the time that he reviewed the proofs of the May 13 issue ... he believed that there was no time to make any changes in the articles, and that the newspaper had to be printed immediately or not at all. ... We ... agree with the district court that the decision to excise the two pages containing the problematic articles was reasonable given the particular circumstances of this case. ...
In sum, we cannot reject as unreasonable Principal Reynolds’ conclusion that neither the pregnancy article nor the divorce article was suitable for publication in Spectrum. Reynolds could reasonably have concluded that the students who had written and edited these articles had not sufficiently mastered those portions of the Journalism II curriculum that pertained to the treatment of controversial issues and personal attacks, the need to protect the privacy of individuals whose most intimate concerns are to be revealed in the newspaper, and “the legal, moral, and ethical restrictions imposed upon journalists within [a] school community” that includes adolescent subjects and readers. Finally, we conclude that the principal’s decision to delete two pages of Spectrum, rather than to delete only the offending articles or to require that they be modified, was reasonable under the circumstances as he understood them. Accordingly, no violation of First Amendment rights occurred.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is therefore Reversed.
It is likely that the approach urged by the dissent would as a practical matter have far more deleterious consequences for the student press than does the approach we adopt today. The dissent correctly acknowledges "[t]he state’s prerogative to dissolve the student newspaper entirely.” It is likely that many public schools would do just that rather than open their newspapers to all student expression that does not threaten “materia[l] disrup[tion of] classwork” or violation of “rights that are protected by law,” regardless of how sexually explicit, racially intemperate, or personally insulting that expression otherwise might be.
