Kansas Students at Center
of Debate on Free Press
The Kansas state senate held hearings last week to consider
a law that would increase the control of public school administrators
over what is published in student newspapers. When the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 1988, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, that
public school students don't have full free-speech rights and that
teachers could limit journalistic expression to improve learning,
six states, including Kansas, adopted laws guaranteeing student
press freedom. Senate Bill 699, now being considered by the Kansas
legislature, would scale back that freedom enough to give principals
the right to ensure "high standards of English and journalism," says
Sen. Laurie Bleeker, the Great Bend, Kans., Republican sponsoring the
new bill. John C. Hudnall, executive director of the Kansas Scholastic
Press Association, is fighting the bill. "It just rips the heart out of the
student press act that passed in 1992," he told the Kansas City Star
in an article published 3-9-98.
Controversy at several central Kansas schools last year moved Bleeker
to introduce her bill. Great Bend High School junior Alexis Vanasse
published an editorial suggesting that a school board member's
son in trouble for alleged sexual harassment was being given special
treatment. When Vanasse's editorial appeared in Panther Tales, GBHS
principal Mike Hester abolished the editorial page, sparking a fight that
threatened to turn into a civil-rights lawsuit, with involvement of the
American Civil Liberties Union. Hester restored the editorial page in the
fall and no suit was filed. Vanasse, now a senior, recently had another story
on sexual harassment squelched by the principal and the ACLU is once
again determining whether to file suit.
In the Star article, Sen. Bleeker said the stronger impetus
behind Senate Bill 699 was an incident last May in nearby Ellinwood, Kans.,
where the Ellinwood High School paper published pieces by graduating seniors
criticizing and ridiculing other students, in ways that Bleeker characterized as
slander, untruths and name-calling. She claims that while the 1992 student press act
prohibits material that doesn't meet English and journalistic standards, the act
doesn't sufficiently define those standards. Bleeker's bill would let administrators
or school boards determine guidelines and standards for student publications.
ACLU lawyer Gene Anderson, of Hays, Kans., says the current law is sufficient.
Anderson told the Star that the student press act spells out that students are to
be expelled or suspended for publishing libelous stories or obscenities as well as
for advocating criminal conduct or disruption of normal school activities.
In the same Star article, Bleeker is said to be interested in bringing the Kansas law
more into conformity with the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited the
protections of free speech in school settings.
source: Kansas City Star Online, March 9, 1998