Students’ free speech

Bigelow High School is not very big as high schools go. But something has happened there with rather large implications for student free-speech rights.

Someone in administration ordered that a two-page spread in the already printed yearbook be removed. The offending pages display a timeline of national events during 2020 and early 2021. School officials cited “community backlash” as the reason for physically removing the pages after the first 15 books were distributed intact in late July.

Yearbook adviser Meghan Walton quit her job at the school over the censorship, which she says she neither authorized nor supports. Students created the censored yearbook content, which she does stand behind.

Those interested can judge for themselves whether the pages in question should have been in the yearbook or not. They’re available online in several places, including the website of the Student Press Law Center.

“So, what’s the big deal?” some might be asking. “Students don’t have free-speech rights.” Oh, but they do. The Arkansas Student Publication Act, a 1995 state law amended in 2019 to include school-sponsored media, makes it clear that students have the right to exercise their right of expression in school-sponsored publications. The act states, “Student publications policies shall recognize that truth, fairness, accuracy, and responsibility are essential to the practice of journalism” and goes on to list four things students are not allowed to publish: obscenity, libel or slander, invasion of privacy, and incitement to commit acts that are against the law or school rules or that disrupt the orderly operation of the school.

It’s pretty clear to this observer that nothing in the Bigelow journalists’ censored timeline violates the provisions of this statute. If these administrators are allowed to get away with this unwarranted censorship, the law guaranteeing Arkansas students their right of expression is seriously eroded. Now more than ever, Arkansas needs to support vigorous journalism education in its public schools. Ripping pages out of yearbooks is not the way to do it.

RANDY HAMM

Bella Vista