January 29th is National Student Press Freedom Day, set aside to highlight their achievements and the importance of allowing student journalists the full protection of the First Amendment. Since the landmark Hazelwood decision, student journalists have been subject to increasing…
Tag: Tinker
GA Judge Holds Up Student’s Right to Be Heard
The First Amendment rights of students continue to be a topic of litigation fifty years after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (you can read about Tinker and subsequent cases here). April 2019, in K.B. v.…
CA Teacher Stands Up for Students Despite Threat of Dismissal
After almost three decades of helping students put together the high school newspaper, a CA teacher is facing possible termination for standing up for her students’ First Amendment rights. It all began in April, when Kathi Duffel received a letter…
50 Years After Tinker, Erosion is Evident
In recent months, free speech within schools has come to the forefront as districts abandoned their own policies for reviewing educational materials; efforts to ban books have increased; and, in one instance, a student was arrested after refusing to recite the pledge of…
CBLDF Speaks Out Against Harsh and Discriminatory Punishment of 6th Grader
A sixth-grade student was arrested in Florida after refusing to participate in the pledge of allegiance. The substitute teacher attempted to insist on his participation but the student still abstained, explaining his views that the flag represents racism in America.…
Support Students’ First Amendment Rights
The Student Press Law Center (SPLC), the Freedom Forum Institute, and the Newseum in Washington, DC, have banded together to declare that 2019, the 50th Anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Tinker decision, the Year of the Student Journalist. With a…
VA Rejects Bill Protecting Students’ First Amendment Rights
The Virginia legislature rejected HB 2382, a bill protecting the First Amendment rights of student journalists, on Monday after the House Education Subcommittee produced a tie vote. The bill was written to return K – 12 and public colleges and…
Vermont Students Stand Up for Their First Amendment Rights!
Burlington High School students had the opportunity to sit down recently with administration and discuss developing new guidelines to preempt censoring student journalists in the future. This meeting came after the school newspaper, BHS Register, was censored in September for breaking…