It was 1983 at Hazelwood East High School when student journalists Cathy Kuhlmeier, Leslie Smart, and Leanne Tippet, noticed articles missing from the newest publication of their school newspaper The Spectrum. Unbeknownst to the students, their principal, Robert Reynolds, had taken issue with two of the newspaper’s segments, and removed them from the paper entirely.  The first of these two segments included anonymous interviews with current students of Hazelwood who had faced or were facing the challenges of teen pregnancy.  The second covered the effect of divorce on teens, again, with interviews.  Principal Reynolds defended his position to his student journalists, noting the highly personal nature of the two articles and remarking that they were inappropriate for the students of Hazelwood.  In response, the three students filed a lawsuit against the school, labeling the actions of their principal as a violation of their 1st constitutional right to free speech and freedom of press. 

 

Despite United States citizens being protected under the 1st Amendment, the laws surrounding school censorship were unclear. Although each student who was interviewed consented to having their interview in the newspaper, Principal Reynolds and the school district feared that they would have to deal with accusations of libel and slander from the divorced parents and the families of the pregnant students. Granted that The Spectrum was a student publication, it was not considered a public forum, raising debates on whether the paper was property of the school, or if each individual article published was property of the students who wrote it.

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In this committee, delegates will be challenged with the opinions of educators, students, and the dissenting viewpoints of justices. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier is a test of not only student freedom, but the original rights our country was built upon.