Bethel School District V

Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving free speech and public schools.

On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Spanaway, Washington, high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body Vice President. The speech was filled with sexual innuendos, but not obscenity, prompting disciplinary action from the administration.

[Here is an excerpt from] Fraser's speech…:

"I know a man who is firm - he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm - but most [of] all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. …

[The speech goes on with even more sexual innuendos.]

After appealing…, [Fraser] was still found to be in violation of a school policy against disruptive behavior. These grounds later… include[d] obscenity at trial… Fraser was suspended from school for two days as a result. [He] was prohibited from speaking at his graduation ceremony, and his name was stricken from the ballot used to elect three graduation speakers. Fraser nonetheless was selected by a write-in vote which placed him second overall among the top three finishers, although Bethel High School administrators refused to accept the write-in vote as a valid result, and continued to deny Fraser the opportunity to speak at graduation.

With approval from his parents and help from ACLU cooperating attorney Jeff Haley, Matt Fraser filed a lawsuit against the school authorities claiming a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech, and the Honorable Jack Tanner, US District Court Justice, ruled in his favor.

The school district then appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in Fraser's favor... The school district asked the United States Supreme Court to consider the case and it agreed to do so. The US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in 7-2 vote to uphold the suspension, saying that the school district's policy did not violate the First Amendment [basically, the Supreme Court disagreed with the other court… they thought the suspension was okay and that it did not violate Fraser’s free speech rights].…

[While the Tinker case] upheld the right for students to express themselves where their words are nondisruptive and could not be seen as connected with the school, the ruling in Fraser can be seen as a limitation on the scope of that ruling, prohibiting certain styles of expression that are sexually vulgar. Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988) was a United States Supreme Court decision between Hazelwood High School journalism students and Hazelwood School District. The court ruled that [newspapers published in public schools have limited free speech if the newspaper is part of a class and is not established as a way for students to express their opinions.] It was decided on January 13, 1988 in favor of Hazelwood School District…

Case The U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that public school officials may impose some limits on what appears in school-sponsored student publications.

The high school paper was published as part of a journalism class. The principal at Hazelwood usually reviewed the school paper before it was published, and in this case he deleted two pages that the staff had written.

One of the deleted articles covered the issue of student pregnancy and included interviews with three students who had become pregnant while attending school. (There was also an article about several students whose parents had been divorced, however the students' names were not disclosed in the article.) To keep the students' identity secret, the staff used pseudonyms instead of the students' names. The principal said he felt the anonymity of the students was not sufficiently protected and that the girls' discussion of their use or non-use of birth control was inappropriate for some of the younger students who were 14-year-old freshmen.

Basis The First Amendment's freedom of speech protections were not violated by the school district because the First Amendment protection for student expression described in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), does not compel a public school to [support] speech that conflicts with its "legitimate pedagogical goals" [aka teaching/curriculum goals]. The school-financed newspaper at issue was also not considered to be a public forum [aka, just anybody couldn’t write just anything], and therefore, its editors were entitled to a lower level of First Amendment protection than is applicable to independent student newspapers or those newspapers that have, by policy and practice, opened their pages to student opinion.

Precedent Under the First Amendment, school officials can censor non-forum student newspapers when they can justify their decision by stating an educational purpose. However, this decision does not allow school officials to censor articles… based on personal opinion.

Some states have passed laws guaranteeing that non-forum newspapers, such as the Hazelwood East High School newspaper, are guaranteed the rights that the First Amendment describes.[1]. US student loses free speech case A former high school student has lost his case in what is the US Supreme Court's first major ruling on students' free speech rights in almost 20 years. At issue was whether a school principal violated a student's right to free speech by suspending him for displaying a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus". Joseph Frederick unfurled the banner near to his school as the Olympic flame passed through Juneau, Alaska, in 2002. The Supreme Court justices ruled by 5-4 that his rights were not violated. Chief Justice John Roberts said in a written ruling that schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as [supporting] the use of drugs. Mr Frederick, 18 at the time, said the words on his 14ft (4.26m) banner did not relate to drug use and were meant to be funny in an attempt to get on television. Head teacher Deborah Morse, who destroyed Mr Frederick's banner and suspended him for 10 days, argued that the banner's message went against the school's anti-drugs policy and was unfurled during a school event to watch the flame pass. A bong is a type of water pipe that can be used to smoke marijuana.

Bush's backing The Supreme Court's ruling has tightened limits on students' rights to free speech at school events. Chief Justice Roberts wrote: "The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic. But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one." The court found that schools "may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use". This meant Mr Frederick's constitutional free speech rights were not violated by the confiscation of his banner and his suspension, Chief Justice Roberts concluded. Justice John Paul Stevens was among the four justices who dissented [disagreed] on the ruling. He wrote: "Although this case began with a silly nonsensical banner, it ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs." Ms Morse and the Juneau school board were supported by the Bush administration, which wanted a broad rule that public schools do not have to tolerate speech that disrupts their basic educational mission.

Vietnam precedent Mr Frederick, now 23 and studying and teaching in China, was backed in the case by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Center for Law and Justice. He was also supported by conservative groups concerned that a ruling against him could allow schools to limit students' expression of religious views, particularly on the issues of abortion and homosexuality. Mr Frederick's lawyer, Douglas Mertz, argued that the court should stand by its 1969 ruling that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate". In that case, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court decided in favour of students who wanted to wear black armbands in class to protest against the war. But the court ruled in the late 1980s that a student did not have the right to give a sexually- suggestive speech at a school assembly and that school newspapers could be censored.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6238672.stm

Published: 2007/06/25 21:38:57 GMT

© BBC MMIX Dean v. Utica FAQ 2/1/2005 By Mike Hiestand On Oct. 12, 2004, a federal district court judge in Michigan issued a message to America's high school student media that they had been waiting to hear for nearly 17 years: the First Amendment is not dead… What was the case [Dean v. Utica Community Schools] about? It all started in early 2002 when Katy Dean, then a junior and sports editor for the Arrow, Utica High School's award-winning student newspaper, and fellow staff member Dan Butts learned that their school district in Utica, Mich., was being sued by a husband and wife who alleged that school bus exhaust fumes had contributed to the husband's lung cancer and other illnesses. The couple lived next to the school district's garage and claimed that buses were frequently allowed to idle for extended periods of time resulting in heavy diesel fumes settling into their house and neighborhood. In researching the story, Dean contacted school district and township officials, who - as the story noted - refused to comment. She also looked at numerous scientific studies, some of which presented conflicting evidence on the carcinogenic effects of exposure to diesel fumes, a fact that she noted in her story. Journalists and journalism educators who later looked at the story agreed that the story was well researched, well-written and journalistically sound. Nevertheless, on March 7, 2002, Utica High School Principal Richard Machesky ordered Gloria Olman, the Arrow's veteran adviser, to pull the story, an accompanying editorial and cartoon. Why was the story censored? Principal Machesky and other school officials - specifically including Superintendent Joan Sergent - claimed that the story was based on unreliable sources and contained a number of inaccuracies. According to court testimony, Assistant Superintendent Randall Eckhardt also told Machesky that because the school district was involved in litigation it "would be inappropriate for the school district to comment on that." What did the judge say? After examining the evidence and hearing courtroom testimony, Judge Arthur Tarnow called the school's censorship "indefensible." First, he found that the Arrow was a limited public forum. To reach that conclusion, the judge examined nine factors to determine the degree of control school officials exercised over the Arrow. Among other things, he noted that students had no practice of submitting content to school officials for prior review nor did the faculty adviser regulate the topics the newspaper covered. In fact, the judge found that during the preceding 25 years, school district officials had never intervened in the editorial process of its student newspapers. He also pointed to language in the district's curriculum guide, course descriptions and the masthead of the Arrow itself as evidence that the newspaper's operations were consistent with that of a limited public forum. Second, the judge closely examined Dean's article and, using criteria gleaned from Hazelwood - including the article's fairness, proper use of grammar, writing quality, bias, accuracy and quality of research - determined that, in spite of school officials' arguments to the contrary, there was not a "significant disparity in quality between Dean's article in the Arrow and the similar articles in 'professional' newspapers." The judge also determined that the superintendent censored the article because she disagreed with the viewpoint expressed in the article by the couple suing the school district and that her description of the article as "inaccurate" was simply an attempt to disguise "what is, in substance, a difference of opinion with its content." Name ______

Directions: After reading your court case summary, answer the following questions.

1) Write one sentence summarizing what happened in the case and what the court decided:______

2) In the t-chart below, give one specific argument given by each side (should be either a direct quote or very specific paraphrase). Circle the name of the student and school that applies to your case

Students’ Side School’s Side Dean Utica Community Schools Kuhlmeier/journalism students Hazelwood School District Fraser Bethel School District

3) What effect does this case have on students’ free speech rights? Circle the best answer.  Places further limits on students’ free speech  Gives students more free speech than they had before  Upholds current limits on students’ free speech; doesn’t add or take away rights

4) Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision for this case? Give at least one specific reason explaining why you agree or disagree. ______The New Jersey State Constitution guarantees children a free, thorough, and efficient public education. Other state constitutions contain similar guarantees. If a student’s behavior disrupts the education of other students, the other students’ rights are being infringed.

Courts regularly balance an individual’s rights against the rights of others. The right to be free from harm is only one of many. Also, I know of no right that permits an individual to infringe on the safety of another, regardless of the setting.

References http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/lawsconstitution/constitution.asp