Twenty-five years ago this week, the Supreme Court issued a First Amendment ruling whose deep impact is still felt in public schools and, now, even at public universities.
The Jan. 13, 1988, decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier was one of those Supreme Court rulings that may have seemed routine at the time, but over time transformed the legal underpinnings of an entire segment of lawin this instance, the power of school administrators to restrict student expression. It gave schools the upper hand, finding that student speech “inconsistent with its educational mission” need not be tolerated.
