Hazelwood School District and the Role of First Amendment Institutions

Abstract

The Supreme Court's five-to-three decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which authorizes educators to supervise the content of an official high school newspaper, is probably the most significant free speech case involving public school students since the Court decided Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District 2 almost twenty years ago. Hazelwood is interesting not only because it marks the Court's first application of first amendment principles to public school newspapers, but because the case creates a category of student speech3 to which Tinker no longer applies: school-sponsored expressive activities.4 I wish to suggest that, rather than weakening the Court's commitment to the constitutional rights of students, Hazelwood seeks to strengthen students' fundamental interest in the underlying principles of free expression: the right to develop their own educated capacity for selfexpression. The Court now seems to recognize that schools as well as courts can advance and protect the values of the first amendment. This decision reinforcing the institutional authority of schools also reflects the Court's developing perspective on the general role of first amendment institutions.5 The Hazelwood Court rejected students'