Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 13, 1987 Decided January 13, 1988
Full case name	Hazelwood School District, et al. v. Kuhlmeier, et al.
Docket nos.	86-836
Citations	484 U.S. 260 (more) 108 S. Ct. 562; 98 L. Ed. 2d 592; 1985 U.S. LEXIS 310; 56 U.S.L.W. 4079; 14 Media L. Rep. 2081
Argument	Oral argument
Prior history	On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Holding
The Court held that speech that can be reasonably viewed to have the school's imprimatur can be regulated by the school if the school has a legitimate pedagogical concern in regulating the speech.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia
Dissent	Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established (by policy or practice) as forums for student expression.

The case concerned the censorship of two articles in The Spectrum, the student newspaper of Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis County, Missouri,1983. When the school principal removed an article concerning divorce and another concerning teen pregnancy, the student journalists sued, claiming that their First Amendment rights had been violated. A lower court sided with the school, but its decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which sided with the students.

In a 5-3 decision rendered in 1988, the Supreme Court overturned the circuit court's decision, determining that school administrators could exercise prior restraint of school-sponsored expression, such as newspapers and assembly speeches, if the censorship is "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns". In this, school-sponsored newspapers are considered limited public forums of expression.