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In January 1988, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case Hazelwood School District v. ... The decision upheld the right of public high school administrators at Hazelwood East High School in suburban St. Louis, MO to censor stories concerning teen pregnancy and the effects of divorce on children from a school-sponsored student newspaper. ... In addition, the court said that school officials could censor material that would associate the school with anything other than neutrality on matters of political controversy. These examples, frightening in their breadth and vagueness, suggest that school officials might be allowed to censor a great number of things simply because they disapprove of them. ... Des Moines School District. ... Since the decision, school administrators have gained the liberty of not only censoring stories that they deem “inappropriate” (which is a serious violation of rights to free speech) but also to impose disciplinary action upon students who either publish or attempt to publish “inappropriate” material. Therefore, the case Hazelwood School District v. ...
Uncontested obedience in the public school system is undemocratic, immoral, and tragic; children are taught to act without thinking or criticizing. ... ” School administrators are allowed to censor material that could very well contain the truth regarding a given subject. ... ”
Official censorship of student speech on the grounds that it addresses “potentially sensitive topics” is impermissible. I [Brennan] would not begrudge an educator the authority to limit the substantive scope of a school-sponsored publication to a certain, objectively definable topic, such as school sports. Unlike those determinate limitations, “potential topic sensitivity” is a vaporous non-standard like “public welfare, peace, safety, good health, morals, order or convenience” that invites manipulation to achieve ends that can not possibly be achieved through blatant viewpoint discrimination, and chills student speech to that which school officials might not object. ... ”
In summary, the Hazelwood case has become an excuse of sorts for public school administrators to censor whatever they disagree with. ...
There is another key area in which freedom of speech and expression has seen the ugly head of censorship: the internet. Id now like to discuss why Internet censorship is wrong.
The Internet is one of the most valuable research tools available to us in the present day. With its millions of web pages and chat rooms, the Internet is an unlimited source of both information and entertainment to adults and children. However, an ongoing debate over the material published is raging on the Internet, and the attempts by the federal government to censor people’s web pages. ... Federal Government “made it a crime to distribute indecent, immoral, or objectionable materials on portions of the Internet where they might be available to children” (Bray). ... For these reasons, Governmental Internet censorship under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 should not be placed in effect.
The Internet is a collection of files, called web sites or web pages, that include textual, graphic, sound and video information, as well as links to other files. “These files are identified by uniform resource locators (URL’s) that specify the transfer protocol, the machines internet address, and the file name”(Microsoft).
Approximate Word count = 2492
Approximate Pages = 10
(250 words per page double spaced)
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