Mounds View High School Journalists Stop the Presses

By Bridget Tyler on March 17th, 2010

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The Viewer, the student paper at Mounds View High School in Minnesota won’t be coming out this week.  When Principle Julie Wikelius decided that she needs to see, and approve, each issue before it is released, the young journalists decided that they couldn’t allow what they see as a violation of their civil rights to stand.

In the adult world, this kind of prior restraint would be a violation of the First Amendment.  Public school students once enjoyed the same First Amendment rights as adults, but the 1988 Supreme Court case of Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmer established that, as publishers of their school newspapers, school districts, have the right to censorship.  That leaves the student journalists of the Viewer with few options other than what they’ve done – walk off the job.

The trouble started when the paper decided to publish a story about the school’s handling of two students who posted a “joke” picture of a teacher on Facebook.  Wikelius claims that she asked the paper to pull the story to protect student confidentiality – she was concerned about releasing private disciplinary information without parental consent.  Christina Xia, the student editor of the Viewer, says that the paper had gotten parental permission to publish the children in question’s names.  They just hadn’t gotten signed parental waivers, but they were able to do so by the end of the day and go ahead with distribution of the paper.

Xia says that by the Viewer received Wikelius’ initial the request to drop the article, the paper had already gone to the printers.  They had interviewed the Principal five days earlier.  Xia is hoping that they can work the issue out internally and lift the prior review rule. “I do not believe that prior review is the solution,” Xia says on the Student Press Law Center’s website.  ”I think that prior review will limit us from learning responsible journalism.”