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Mass. school revises student free-expression policy
© 2002 Student Press Law Center
October 15, 2002
MASSACHUSETTS – The Amherst Regional School Committee
has made its student free-expression policy more First Amendment friendly after
a student was suspended for distributing his underground newspaper.
On
Oct. 8 the committee voted 8-1 in favor of revising the policy in order
to “highly recommend” rather than “require”
students to provide material to administrators for prior approval
before distributing it at school.
The policy change comes after Amherst Regional
High School senior Max Karson was suspended twice since last February for
distributing his controversial underground paper, The Crux, on school
grounds. Both suspensions, including the latest one last month, were revoked
soon after questions were raised regarding the constitutionality of the
school’s policy of prior approval.
The American Civil Liberties
Union of Western Massachusetts came to the defense of Karson's
free-speech rights following each suspension and assisted the school committee
in revising the policy.
“By and large, [the committee] made a good
faith attempt to comply with the intent of Massachusetts Student Free Expression
Law,” said William Newman, director the ACLU of Western
Massachusetts.
The state law, passed in 1988, provides students attending
public high schools with free-speech protection against administrative
censorship, which was permitted under the First Amendment by the U.S. Supreme
Court decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier earlier that
year.
The Massachusetts Student Free Expression Law holds that
students only can be punished if their speech is proven to be libelous, obscene
or has caused a material disruption of classes. At least 50 Amherst
teachers expressed concern over what they believe is the high school’s
inability to enforce school policies on obscenity and disruption in light
of Massachusetts’ protection of student speech.
The teachers
were offended by the latest issue of The Crux, in which Karson
discussed pornography and mentioned a student and administrators in a sexual
context. In a letter to The Graphic, the school’s official student
newspaper, the teachers argued that the public school should be able to expect
its students to exercise their free-speech rights “reasonably and
responsibly,” regardless of how much their free expression is
protected.
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