Student journalists are increasingly in the public eye — and in the crosshairs.
They’ve been recognized for covering consequential issues on campuses and in communities nationwide, and they’re viewed as part of the answer to the crisis in local news. Meanwhile, they’ve faced backlash, censorship, removal and other press freedom threats to an unprecedented degree. In 2024, students made up 21% of all journalists arrested or detained in the United States.
As the importance of student journalists continues to grow, working journalists may scramble to cover these younger versions of themselves. To help them understand the principles at play while doing so, and to help parents and community members recognize the vital role student journalists play, here are seven things to bear in mind:
(1) Yes, student journalists are journalists.
More than 25 million readers in the U.S. received their news from student journalists’ work published in professional outlets in the 2023-2024 school year. Many more get news through student media outlets at colleges and high schools. Student journalists fill gaps in news deserts, often covering statehouses, school boards and local and state elections. They also document sexual harassment on their campuses, report on student mental health and teen suicides, cover issues facing transgender students and reveal extortions of students on social media. They live-tweet school shootings, then bear witness to the tragedy. Their investigations have brought down university presidents, football coaches and police chiefs.
(2) The stronger their journalism, the more likely students will attract controversy.
Of the roughly 200 censorship cases reported to the Student Press Law Center yearly, practically none involve student journalists wanting to drop an F-bomb or advocate for “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.” Instead, administrative censorship follows student journalism that might “make the school look bad,” or that exposes — or even suggests — that the school or its administration needs improvement.
Equally dangerous for the students: Reporting on issues those in authority don’t want to discuss but that students live with and may struggle with — and are therefore uniquely qualified to address. This includes students’ differing views on political or international controversies as well as student mental health, gender identity issues, sexual harassment and gun violence on campus.
(3) Yearbooks are journalism, too.
Once thought of as benign publications, a cross between a scrapbook and photo album, quality yearbooks document the history of the year, the people, the events and the trends. Unfortunately, with alarming frequency, administrators override students’ editorial decisions about how they document themselves and their experiences, including what names or pronouns they use or what events or topics they remember of the year. In one case in Arkansas, administrators ripped out the timeline pages of each yearbook to excise mention of Black Lives Matter protests, while others have been censored because students wore MAGA shirts or the swim team wore bathing suits.
(4) Neither the principal nor the superintendent is the publisher.
Some working journalists inaccurately assume the students’ situation is analogous to their own relationships with their employers. In public schools, however, school employees — including publication advisers — are government officials and so are constrained by the First Amendment in a way a private publisher is not.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the 1969 landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Few would think it is constitutional — or even sound pedagogy — for the school district to forbid students to write about Hamlet’s motivation, to debate whether voting should be compulsory, or to research the causes of World War I.
Yet when student journalists report on contemporary issues, these very rights often disappear. Administrations frequently forbid students to write, debate and research topics they deem controversial.
When we erroneously conflate the administration with a private publisher, we cloud the important issues at stake.
(5) First Amendment protections granted to student journalists are often misunderstood and routinely violated. These conditions spawn environments of censorship and fear.
Thanks to the Tinker decision, which involved high school and junior high school students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, students’ First Amendment rights are protected in public schools unless their speech is unlawful (for example, libelous, obscene or an illegal invasion of privacy) or if it creates a “clear and present danger” of a “material and substantial disruption” of the school.
But in 1988, the Supreme Court created a student journalism exception to those Tinker-defined First Amendment protections. In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, it ruled that school administrators may censor school-sponsored media when the censorship is “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not define what “legitimate pedagogical concerns” are. Administrators, often fearful of societal pressures and anxious to avoid controversy, have interpreted “pedagogical concerns” very broadly, using it to engage in subjective and arbitrary censorship.
This environment — fear that the principal could censor almost anything the students write or even punish their publication adviser for student-generated content — is so pervasive that many students do not recognize that they self-censor to avoid overt censorship.
Note: While Hazelwood limits the rights of high school students in public schools, First Amendment protections for public college student journalists remain strong. While the First Amendment generally does not apply to private schools and colleges, many strong journalism programs flourish at these schools under assurances of editorial freedom in their school policies.
(6) Student journalists in some states have clearer, expanded rights thanks to the New Voices movement.
Post Hazelwood, states have recognized the educational and societal harm Hazelwood does. These have passed New Voices laws, which restore the Tinker standard and guarantee that student editors determine the content of student media, with the narrow exceptions noted above.
So far, 18 states — more than a third — and many school districts had passed New Voices laws and policies, believing the Hazelwood standard empowers far too much censorship. At a minimum, these laws protect public high school student journalists but some also extend protections to their advisers, to private schools or to the college level.
Students and educators in many other states continue to advocate in their state legislatures for New Voices laws, with nine bills introduced in 2024 alone. The legislation attracts support from legislators on both sides of the aisle, perhaps in agreement with Justice Robert H. Jackson’s 1943 opinion:
That we are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.
(7) Don’t report on censorship without talking to the students being censored.
A superficial story about student media controversies will rely on the school district’s public statements and report the opinions of the often vocal minority opposing the speech. Strong journalism will cover the human and legal drama at play and the lessons the students learn from it.
Talk to the students whose voices are being silenced and student journalists from neighboring schools or districts, especially if they’re covering the issue in their publications, or to former student journalists who have experienced parallel situations.
Be skeptical when administrators claim legal authority to censor. Interview a lawyer at the Student Press Law Center — a nonpartisan nonprofit that has been working in this space for more than five decades — or other attorneys with experience in the First Amendment and New Voices laws.
Finally, understand that advisers may not be able to speak frankly because their jobs and livelihoods may be on the line. Advisers outside the district, though, may talk with you about the challenging role and how they’re often caught in the middle between defending their students’ rights and doing what they’re told.
Where to go for more information:
The Student Press Law Center has collected resources on this page for working journalists and offers a newsletter with the latest updates.
National organizations at the high school level include:
- Journalism Education Association
- National Scholastic Press Association
- Columbia Scholastic Press Association
- Quill & Scroll
As a starting point for local sources:
National organizations at the college level include:
This article was originally published by Poynter and is republished on IJNet with permission.
Photo via Pexels by Keira Burton.