President’s Column:

Future of the First Amendment study should trouble journalism educators and professionals alike

by Gary Clites

Originally published in the Maryland-DC Scholastic Press Association's The Adviser, Spring 2005

Since the Hazelwood decision severely limited student’s free press rights, teachers have asked one question:  If we take away student’s rights in school, what are we teaching the youth of America about the Bill of Rights?  The recently published study, Future of the First Amendment, by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation finally provides us with an answer, and it should send a chill down the spine of every teacher with a commitment to free speech.

The project, available in full at the foundation’s website, www.knightfdn.org, surveyed more than 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 high schools across the nation in the largest study of its kind ever completed.  

Among the key findings of the study, only 51 percent of students believe that, “Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.”  Only 70 percent agreed that, “Musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics others may find offensive.” Only 58 percent agreed with the statement, “High school students should be allowed to report controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities.”  And only 83 percent believe that, “People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.”

The report goes on to note that 75 percent of our newest citizens do not believe Americans have a legal right to burn the American flag in protest.  Such fundamental misunderstandings of the role of the First Amendment in American society should trouble all educators, not only those of us in scholastic journalism.

The release of the study has engendered much discussion in the press regarding why only about half of America’s students feel newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of content.  But while an overemphasis on testing and weaknesses in civic education have been blamed, the conditions under which student journalists work and in which scholastic journalism is created have not been adequately explored.  

The Knight Foundation’s digest of the study, Future of the First Amendment:  Key Findings ‘05, distributed widely this Winter to journalism educators, never so much as mentions the 1988 Supreme Court Hazelwood decision which stripped student journalists of their access to the same free press rights enjoyed by other reporters.  Further, Hodding Carter III, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, in a fairly in-depth discussion of the report on the February 6 edition of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered (available as streaming audio at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4488491) made no mention of Hazelwood or of in-school censorship of the student press in his discussion of the causes of the problem.  

How can we expect either student journalists or in-school consumers of scholastic publications to appreciate the importance of a free press while denying them access to such freedom?  The Knight Foundation’s unwillingness to slam Hazelwood as a contributor to the problem may reflect the attitude prevalent among many adult professionals in the field that high school students cannot be trusted with the same level of press freedom they enjoy.  But the Future of the First Amendment study should serve as a wake-up call to all those in our field that denying such rights to the youth of America may well be eroding the support these students will bring to a free and unfettered press as they move into adulthood.  

The study does acknowledge the importance of scholastic journalism in educating young people about their freedoms.  They note, for example, that students who show “High Activity” in school journalism activities (participating in three or more activities) are far more likely to agree that protesters have a right to burn the American flag (39 percent) or that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions (87 percent). 

The report goes into some depth examining the state of scholastic journalism today and analyzing the obstacles that affect it.  They find that while 70 percent of administrators say journalism education is a priority, only 17 percent consider it a high priority.  While 85 percent of administrators say they would like to expand their school’s existing student media, they see a number of obstacles in the way, including a lack of financial resources (8.51 percent), student apathy (5.14 percent) and teachers lack of knowledge to teach such programs (4.75 percent).  These factors may explain why 21 percent of American high schools offer no media programs at all, while only 28 percent offer two or more such outlets for journalistic student expression.

The Knight Foundation deserves much credit for completing an important piece of research into the state of the First Amendment in our schools.  The study should trouble not just those involved in media education, but everyone interested in protecting the freedoms upon which our nation is built.  

Those analyzing these findings, however, need to acknowledge the chilling effect the Hazelwood decision has had on student journalists across the country.  It is further evidence that you cannot take freedoms away from one portion of the population without affecting all those who enjoy such rights.  The professional press should take this as evidence that working to support student in-school media is not only important, but may be essential to protecting the freedoms we all enjoy.  Professional journalism organizations may take the lesson that involving secondary communications educators in their plans and their planning should be an important priority.

Those of us in the trenches of journalism education need to look upon Future of the First Amendment as an acknowledgment of the importance of our role in molding not only future journalists, but the future citizens they will become.  It is a reminder that living in a truly free country requires constant ongoing commitment to those freedoms from every one of us.

© Gary Clites, 2005