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Michigan Decision shreds Hazelwood point by point'

(Reprinted from the Student Press Law Center Bulletin)

UTICA , Mich. -- Student journalists "must be allowed to publish viewpoints contrary to those of state authorities without intervention or censorship by the authorities themselves," U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled in Dean v. Utica Community Schools .

The Nov. 17 opinion affirms Tarnow 's Oct. 12 bench ruling, in which he called Utica school officials' censorship of Katy Dean's 2002 story in the Utica High School Arrow "indefensible."

Dean's story was about a lawsuit filed against Utica Community Schools by Utica residents Rey and Joanne Frances. The Frances ' maintained that diesel exhaust from a school bus garage, owned by the district and located near their home, exacerbated Rey's lung cancer.

Tarnow wrote that the Arrow constitutes a limited public forum, which means that restrictive standards established by the Supreme Court in its 1988 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision do not apply.

"This is a huge case," John Bowen, a student press law expert at Kent State University , told J-Ideas. "In many ways, he shreds the Hazlewood case point by point."

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center , called the Utica case "the most important student-newspaper censorship case since Hazelwood" and said Tarnow 's ruling is a clear victory for high school journalists.

"It's really a parting of the clouds, if you will, from the darkness that was cast by Hazelwood for many high school publications," Goodman said. "This will give them the ability to argue that the censorship that their school is engaging in is, in fact, unconstitutional."

Courts have previously said that the government may only regulate speech in a limited public forum where it can demonstrate a "compelling" reason, such as showing that a particular article in a student publication would result in a serious, physical disruption to normal school activities. The less-restrictive Hazelwood standard, which allows school officials to regulate student speech "for legitimate pedagogical concerns," only applies to nonpublic forums. However, Tarnow wrote, "Even if the Arrow is a non-public forum, [school officials'] suppression of Dean's article was unreasonable."

Dean's lawyer, Andrew Nickelhoff, said the distinction between a public and nonpublic forum was crucial to the case.

"That is a really important principle that the judge affirmed, which is that at least in certain circumstances, a high school newspaper does function as a public forum," he said.

For more on student press law issues, visit the Student Press Law Center website at www.splc.org

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