New Voices Are Being Brought to Student Journalists

Haley Drewett, Jeremy Williams, and Jake Sarey|November 17, 2017

New Voices is an advocacy group for journalism students in America that fights for the rights of students to cover relevant information of public concerns without fear of punishment from their school. Although not consistent throughout all of the states in regards to rules and regulations, both students and adult advocates are fighting for the freedom of learning journalists.

 

Across the nation, the debate involving the right of student journalists to produce content without the risk of censorship from school administrations is growing. In the state of Texas, school districts are legally allowed to censor content that may be controversial or in the eyes of administration, inappropriate. However there is a pending campaign to guarantee highschool and college journalists the right to publish stories, even if it is against an administration’s wish.

 

On one side of the issue, many argue that the censorship of student journalists by school administrations is a direct violation of the first amendment, which gives American citizens the right to freedom of speech and press. People of this view believe that preventing students from delivering speech, simply because a governing entity takes issue with it, sets a bad precedent that limits the voice of students.

 

The opposing argument focuses on the power of administration over students to be justified by their position in the school district. One criterion for this idea is that public institutions that pay its employees, have the right to force its employees, such as a broadcast journalism instructor, to remove or delete content that is not appealing to the administrators and general public in order to prevent a lawsuit.

 

From state to state, the progression of freedom for student journalists varies. https://newvoicesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/MYTH-V..pdf provides a map of the progression with states including California, Oregon, and Nevada all providing student protection from censorship. States including Colorado, Kansas and Arkansas all provide protection of high school students but not college students. As of July, 2017, the majority of remaining states all have campaigns for the issue leaving the rest of the United States not knowledgeable of the movement.

 

New Voices is currently heavily focusing on Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin with the goal of shifting the current legislation that allows for the censorship of student journalists. In the past, New Voices was a major factor in the introduction of laws advocating for the free speech for students in Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota, and Vermont. The advocacy group is still trying to organize campaigns in many other states that allow for the censorship of journalistic content produced by students.

 

Some myths regarding the uncensorship of student journalists found at   https://newvoicesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/MYTH-V..pdf are that students will commit libel, invade privacy, and otherwise injure people. This was labeled as a myth by New Voices because since California becoming an advocate state 40 years ago, none of these actions have been recorded. Another myth according to the topic is that administrators are required to “edit” the final project of the student in the prevention of being sued. This was proved incorrect as there were zero published cases in which the school was held responsible for student publication.

 

Currently, New Voices is focused on shifting more legislation in favor of students. However, most states still don’t allow its student journalists to have freedom of speech to its fullest extent. The vast majority of students can still have their school administration prevent content from being broadcasted. The war has still not been won, but New Voices is trying its hardest to win as many battles as possible.