Commentary : High Court Ruling Leaves Him Speechless : Principal Afraid Action on School Newspapers Will Hurt Students

When I first heard that the Supreme Court had deprived students of their right to freedom of speech, I was--no joke intended--speechless.

I sadly considered the fact that neither the Supreme Court nor schools can be counted on to promote the principles of our Constitution for all Americans.

As a high school principal, I’m particularly concerned that the Supreme Court took the freedom of speech from students because a member of my profession censored articles written for his school’s paper by three students.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that a Missouri principal did not violate students’ free-speech rights by deleting articles on teen-age pregnancy and divorce from the school newspaper because the paper is owned by the school.

Come on now--how can relevant, educationally rich topics like teen-age pregnancy and divorce be inconsistent with a school’s basic educational mission? My goodness, school-age boys and girls are becoming parents in alarming numbers, seeking desperately needed love from babies while they’re still babies themselves, and divorce is constantly ripping American families apart, sending kids to school in confused states of mind, day after day.

As I see it, what’s happening is: At a time when young people need us the most we--schools, parents, communities--are turning our backs to their cries.

Even before the Supreme Court came down with its horribly misguided decision, schools were becoming increasingly repressive and frightening. Undercover drug busts are common practices in many school systems. Students can be searched based on a school official’s “reasonable” suspicions, and they can be suspended if someone in authority feels they have made an “offensive” speech at a school assembly.

So, how are students--with their rights being slowly taken away from them--supposed to deal with the feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, loneliness and isolation that already plague so many of them? Don’t we realize how much they’re hurting?

Don’t we know that the young journalists--whose articles were censored--were only addressing two of the major problems facing today’s youth; that besides teen-age pregnancy and divorce, some of our children overeat and others don’t eat enough; some are subjected to sexual and other forms of physical and emotional abuse; that despair is such a constant in the lives of our country’s adolescents that more and more of them are committing suicide every day?

Are we ignorant to the reality that all of this is happening against a background of increasingly polluted skies and seas; barred doors and windows in neighborhoods dotted with signs warning criminals to beware; homeless people barely existing in our parks and on our sidewalks and the worldwide problems of terrorism, apartheid and nuclear arms?

Who knows what it will take to turn such a world around? We surely can’t expect to confront madness by depriving our children of their right to freedom of speech. Besides, if teen-agers lose their rights, then we can rest assured that our rights are in jeopardy, too.

Since this issue of freedom of speech originated in a school setting, it seems fitting that schools should take an active and sincere part in rectifying the situation.

Educators should devote their attention to developing more sensible and humane ways of educating young people. This will entail thinking far beyond just making graduation requirements tougher, and adding more minutes to the school day and more days to the school year. The use of such “quick fix” approaches to education is leaving too many students out in the cold.

Educators, quite simply, must encourage new ways of thinking regarding what learning is all about since the Supreme Court--and our society, as a whole--seem to feel that education consists solely of reading, writing and arithmetic.

If students are to take meaningful roles in a complicated world, they must be given the opportunity to learn by doing. It’s up to educators to create such a learning environment. Principals and journalism teachers need to discuss the First Amendment--its protections as well as its abuses. Students need to learn why libel, obscenity and invasion of privacy are harmful.

I’ve found that if students participate in the setting of guidelines, then student editors perform the same function that editors at real newspapers do. Student editors will exert peer pressure on fellow students who want to put poorly reported or inaccurate stories into the school paper. The problems seem to resolve themselves without the need for censorship.

Who knows, such a cooperative educational environment could possibly encourage a future Supreme Court to consider giving young people back the rights they deserve as American citizens.