Rhetorical Analysis of Materials Covering Student Freedom of Speech Rights

When the framers of the United States Constitution wrote that historic document, they gave citizens the right to freedom of speech in the First Amendment. Educators and free speech advocates argue over how many of those freedoms are the rights of underage student journalists. High school journalists across the country test the boundaries of their rights to freedom of speech as underage US citizens while reporting and writing stories for high school publications. Newspaper advisors and school administrators play a balancing act between their students' freedoms and protecting the integrity of the school when they chose to censor or limit stories by students at their schools. By examining three published sources, the line between those freedoms and the desire of schools to protect their reputation and control topics exposed to the student body becomes a little clearer.

The Web site, www.firstamendmentcenter.org, provides a lesson plan for teachers and high school advisors to teach the rights of the student press. The site is helpful because high school journalists need a good understanding of the limitations and rights set forth by the United States courts in order to self-censor story ideas and problems sources and to argue against potential censorship of a controversial issue. The First Freedom Center is a product of the Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation located in Washington DC that started in 1991 and claims to operate not under the direction of any large media operation or government agency. The lesson plan seems to be the result of a collaboration of Freedom Forum staff members.

The site takes students through important United States Supreme Court decisions that have framed the rights of student journalists. Two court cases are most important in student freedom of speech case law. Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District manifested in 1965 when a group of students wore black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam. The Supreme Court justices furthered student free speech rights by writing that the only control allowed by administrators was the right to punish school-sponsored speech that disrupted work and discipline in the school, or interfered with the rights of others. The second case Hazelwood School District V. Kuhlmeier limits student freedom of expression. The article doesn't go into detail about that case, but outlines activities for students to apply critical thinking skills and follow the case as a high school journalist. The activities in the lesson lead students to the conclusion that while not set in concrete, student press rights are limited. Student journalists do have First Amendment rights; however those rights can be curtailed in schools.

The site run by those looking to strengthen First Amendment rights presents an obvious bias. The lesson omits any discussion of why administrators might need to limit student expression. The biases were not overwhelming, and the lesson plan provides a strong overview of the historical and present day implications of freedom of student expression. An educator should present the lesson with an understanding that Freedom Forum.org provides the lessons plans with the hopes of furthering their agenda of "free speech, free press, and free spirit for all people," from the "about us" section of their Web site. Teachers and administrators and indirectly students are the intended audience for this site. The lesson is obviously written as a high school lesson. Students are assumed to have some basic understanding of the First Amendment, but aren't asked to perform outside research or cover the issue and cases in depth as usually required in a post-secondary environment. Therefore, the lesson plan cannot be used as a comprehensive overview in a paper examining the role high school advisors play in censoring school journalists, but is a good primer for the subject.

An asset to this article is the lengthy list of resources related directly to student freedom of speech. The lesson plan includes a list of web, print and visual media resources helpful to an academic researcher and to a high school teacher looking to expand on the topic in future lessons or assign reading assignments to further student knowledge. Also important to note, on its own the lesson plan isn't a great resource because in the text it calls for reference to other sources like the Hazelwood case summary to give background and guide students on an in-class exercise. The text does seem to link to all relevant materials to overcome any knowledge gaps. While an online source, the page seems static and no updates within the past few months were noticed. The lesson plan was posted in 2004, meaning some of the information might be outdated.

Chapter three in the book Student Rights: a Reference Handbook by Patricia Hinchey expands on the court's viewpoint on student rights and the case law handed down by the United States Supreme Court. The book focuses on student rights in all areas, such as rights in the area of student searches of personal property and inequalities in school. In the freedom of speech section, the author examines issues besides those directly related to high school journalism, and includes information on student rights in clothing choices and internet usage. According to her Curriculum Vitale, Hinchey currently works as an associate professor at Penn State University and has published a number papers, books, and book excerpts, many on student rights.

The chapter starts by stating the First Amendment: "Congress shall pass no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," but then goes on to explain why the court feels this statement might not always pertain to students (Hinchey, 31). Hinchey explains that at times the court has interpreted student freedom of expression more liberally and at times more conservatively. She also wonders about how a recently seated conservative court, at the time of this book's publishing in 2001, will impact the case law handed down by the Supreme Court. She expands on the important court cases in the arena of student freedom of speech outlined in the First Amendment Center lesson plan. Hinchey chooses a format of presenting the important case law and following with how the law is applicable to specific areas of student freedom of expression, such as freedom of clothing choice, and freedom of speech in school publications. In the section geared toward how these cases affect student publications, Hinchey maintains censorship has grown. She speculates that students might turn to outside sources like internet Web sites to share school news. This harms the integrity of student journalism, according to Hinchey.

By just reading chapter three of the book, Hinchey's intended audience is unclear. After reading the book preface, one learns the book is part of a serious on educational matters. Hinchey also write in chapter one that the book focuses on rights from a legal standpoint through case law and Supreme Court writings (1). This means the book most likely was written for educators, or scholars with a more basic understanding of student rights, or undergraduate university students. Hinchey also notes in chapter one that the book is a good place to find research sources for further information about individual student rights issues (1). The book was found as an electronic e-book, available free of charge through many different sites, supporting the proposition that it is a general research source. The book was published in 2001, at a time when freedom of speech was often losing the battle against security concerns due to the 1999 Columbine High School attacks. The information should be considered a little outdated, and Hinchey's statement that freedom of expression is being constantly more limited should be weighed with this qualifier.

A third source, "High School Confidential" by Jill Rosen examines the issue of censorship and student freedom of speech by looking closely at examples of articles censored in school publications. Rosen wrote the piece as the assistant managing editor of the American Journalism Review. Information on the author is scare, but the American Journalism Review is a reputable source of journalism information. The article includes anecdotal evidence from several real-life cases of censorship of high school publications and starts with a lengthy example many consider a good case to challenge the stricter viewpoint of censorship handed down by the courts in Hazelwood. The case involves reporting of a story about gas fumes in the school district bus garage. What is notable, and perhaps challenge worthy about this particular case is that the paper has historically had little to no prior review or censorship from administrators, making a strong argument the paper is a public forum, and the students' reporting was reportedly strong and followed good journalistic practices. The Rosen article does not include a conclusion to the court case as of the article's publishing in 2002. Again, this source is also outdated, limiting its applicability to censorship in schools today. Rosen argues that censorship is on the rise at the time of her article, citing the increase in number of phone calls to the Student Press Center compared to earlier years. Another helpful aspect to this article is the bulleted list of examples of censorship with explanations of why the articles were pulled from administrators, whose reasoning ranged from bad journalistic practices to worry the article would create a negative public image of the school.

Writing for the American Journalism Review gives Rosen a bit of a biased background. Journalists seem more apt to side on the side of freedom of speech and fight against censorship by school administrators. The AJR covers matters pertinent to journalists. An article from an educational periodical might take a different stance. Rosen writes for other journalists reading the magazine for trade education and possibly scholars interested in the subject. The structure of the paper includes a lengthy introduction with a story-telling voice relating the story of the journalists who had their gas fumes story censored. The body of the paper then examines the state of censorship at the time of the articles publishing and also includes briefer examples of censorship examples. Rosen concludes the article by returning to the first example and talking about why the case might be set future case law and impact the future of censorship in schools. The article is available through several Web sites online, including the American Journalism Review's home page. Because the older article is so readily available in so many different online venues, the information in the article might not be as outdated as the 2002 publishing date indicates. The three materials analyzed all take a look at case law, or specific examples of high school journalism censorship, but from a different background and with a different goal, greatly due to the fact that all have a different intended audience. The lesson plan from the First Amendment Center, the book with an overview of student rights, and the article intended for professional journalists all seem to concede that censorship in schools is rising and has been doing so since the landmark Hazelwood court case, but all three sources seem to broadcast that message for a different reason. The lesson plan seeks to inform students about freedom of speech, while the book seems to be geared toward simply informing scholars working on educational pursuits, while the article reads almost as a call to action to the journalism community. A clearer picture of the line between censorship for protection of the school and censorship purely to censor was developed from a closer inspection of the materials.

Hinchey, Patricia. Student Rights: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2001.

Rosen, Jill. "High school confidential". American Journalism Review. FindArticles.com. 01 Feb, 2009. .

Summary of Curriculum Vitale Patricia Hinchey. 03 Feb. 2009 .

"Where do Student Press Rights Start...and Stop?" First Amendment Schools Lesson Plans. 31 Aug. 2004. First Amendment Center. 05 Feb. 2009 .