tudent journalists’ voices in the media.The ongoing fight for student freedom of expression was not just evident in the Hazelwood case, but was evident in many cases before it. Only three years before, in the case of Bethel v. Fraser, the United States Supreme Court said: Schools must teach by example the shared values of a civilized social order and to this end the constitutional rights of students in public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults and other settings (Foerstel 219).This decision only infuriated student journalists, so they started publishing more controversial material in their newspapers. Since the 1970s and early 1980s were times of freedom for students to print controversial material in newspapers, students fought to retail this freedom after Bethel (Simpson). This feeling of freedom led to the extreme resistance of the principal’s decision at Hazelwood. There are many mixed feelings about the Hazelwood decision. One year after the United States Supreme Court made its decision, a survey of high school teachers showed that 71% of teachers saw this as a fair ruling (Martinson 2). Since this ruling, the Student Press Law Center reports that school officials have censored a broad range of topics, ranging from student drug abuse to teacher salary negotiations to school board elections. Student responses have also been negative. The Hazelwood decision has had a “chilling effect on the ability and willingness of student journalists to write about serious issues and the problems that face kids today,” (Simpson)....
