Court Upholds Censorship of Student Press

By Tom Mirga

Washington--The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that school administrators have sweeping authority to regulate student speech in school-sponsored publications and activities.

Acting in a case stemming from the censorship of a St. Louis-area high-school newspaper in 1983, the Court held 5 to 3 that its landmark 1969 decision that students "do not shed their constitutional rights ... at the schoolhouse gate" does not apply to student expression that the public "might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school."

"This standard is consistent with our oft-expressed view that the education of the nation's youth is primarily the responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of federal judges," wrote Associate Justice Byron H. White for the majority in Hazelwood School District v....