Student Free Press and Civics Readiness Act

Angel Bacol, Editor-in-Chief

When people are out and in public, they are not afraid to speak out their own opinions. Whether it is hurtful or not to other people, they can easily say, “I have the right to say whatever I want. I am free to speak about anything.”

While the freedom of free speech doesn’t have anyone stopping it, the freedom of press has. For years, student journalists have had their rights to publish their thoughts out on their school newspaper taken from them multiple times.

For example, in 1969 the Tinker v. Des Moines Case involved Iowa public school officials suspended students for wearing black armbands to protest the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War violating the First Amendment.

Those students were not disrupting school activities and were only expressing their opinions. The school officials had not right to censor the students’ opinions. Multiple cases have gone on throughout history with the school trying to censor our ideas and beliefs in order to keep the issue away from the school.

Recently, Senator Rick Jones introduced Senate Bill 848 with Senators Steve Bieda, Tom Casperson, and Patrick Colbeck co-sponsoring it. This is the Student Free Press and Civics Readiness Act. When there is an issue between the school and student journalists, while there are some that listen to the school, there are those who are willing to sue the school for violating students’ First Amendment rights. The Student Free Press Bill contains a list of rational obscene and libelous material that a school can inhibit from student media, protects students from liability for student speech, and reduces the likeliness of schools being sued.

This bill is extremely helpful for student journalists. There are issues that students want to address to other people but are being blocked because it casts an unflattering light onto the school. Issues like smoking, underage drinking, student/teacher/administrator misdemeanors, etc. do not threaten the school nor does it disrupt the learning environment. Student journalists provides news to its student body with information that not all may be aware of. The Student Free Press Bill allows students to regain their voices that schools have sometimes silenced on paper. The bill not only allows students to write what they want, it also helps the school learn of what should and should not be in a school paper.