CLUH Discusses Student Press Issues

Student journalists in Massachusetts have broad legal rights in deciding what to publish, a Harvard professor and a prominent Massachusetts civil libertarian told a group of high school reporters yesterday.

"Even if the Constitution does not protect student journalists, the state of Massachusetts will," said Assistant Professor of Education Jay Heubert.

Heubert and Nancy Murray, the director of the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, spoke at a two-hour conference titled "Your Right to Press." The conference was sponsored by the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard (CLUH).

Massachusetts is one of several states that has a law superseding Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, a 1988 Supreme Court decision that restricted the rights of high school journalists, the speakers said.

In Hazelwood, the Court ruled that public school officials have broad authority to censor newspapers and other "school-sponsored expressive activities" as long as "their actions are reasonably related to pedagogical concerns," they said.

However, the commonwealth's Student Free Expression Act of 1988, which was printed in a flyer handed out to the 30 students attending the conference, guarantees that "the right of students to freedom of expression in the public schools of the commonwealth shall not be abridged, provided that such right shall not cause any disruption or disorder within the school."

The statute specifically protects the rights of students "to write, publish and disseminate their views."

Murray cited examples of censorship in schools in different areas of the country and said that because of the state law, Massachusetts students were in a "pretty privileged position."

Conference coordinator Todd I. Espinosa '97 said the purpose of the event was to let student journalists know about their rights in Massachusetts.

The author of the student free expression law, former legislator Nicholas Paleologos, led one of four discussion sessions held after opening remarks. The workshops dealt with censorship, the student press and alternative publications.