What
Would You Do?
Pretend
you work on a high school newspaper and it is your job to
decide whether to publish articles. Assume you live in a state
that has not passed "anti-Hazelwood" legislation extending
greater First Amendment protection to school newspapers than
that afforded by Hazelwood. Below are brief descriptions
of six articles you might receive. Your teacher will put
you in groups and have each group discuss whether or not to
publish the article, and why, and also whether you think the
administration of your school would want to censor these articles.
You should then be prepared to discuss your article with the
rest of the class, and your reason for publishing or not publishing
the article, keeping in mind the Supreme Court's decision
in the Hazelwood case.
- Following
a drug arrest at your school, a student writes a first-person
account of how his friend got arrested. In the article,
he admits to some activities that are in violation of
school rules and state law. He criticizes both the police
and the security guards at your school. He does not want
the article published anonymously.
- Reporters
from your paper write an article based on a commercial
Web site on which students post their ratings of their
teachers. The article includes sample comments on teachers
in your school, both positive and negative. The negative
comments include: "If you get this teacher, run for the
parking lot," "Can't teach his way out of a paper bag,"
and "this teacher had an affair with another teacher (not
named)." The teachers are named.
- A
reporter for your paper writes a long article about the
problem of drug use in your school. She interviews several
students about their use of marijuana but does not use
their names or other personal details about the students
that could help identify them. The article makes it clear
that marijuana use is widespread in your school.
- Reporters
for your paper discover that the star quarterback for
your football team does not live within the boundaries
of the school. They write an article exposing this fact
and, of course, naming the quarterback. The consequences
of publishing this article will include forfeiting all
the wins from your school's football season, which is
just ending with a good shot at winning the state championship.
- A
teacher approaches a reporter for your paper with an article
about cheating being tolerated in your school, but the
teacher will not agree to have her name used in the article.
She says she caught a student cheating on a final exam
and gave the student a zero. This failing grade on the
final exam resulted in the student, a senior, being ineligible
to participate in the school musical, in which she was
scheduled to be the lead. Her parents pressured the principal
to overturn the grade and the principal did so. Publishing
the article would, of course, reveal the identity of the
student involved but not the teacher.
- There
are high-stakes standardized tests given in your school
every May. In order to graduate, students must pass these
tests. Students have told your reporters that other students
obtained a copy of the test in advance from a teacher.
The students involved agree to tell what happened if none
of the names of any of the parties involved would appear
in the article.
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