Newly issued guidelines from Montgomery County Public Schools make progress in recognizing the editorial independence of student media, but advocates argue the district still falls critically short of complying with the Maryland New Voices law.
A new district checklist requires administrators to review and sign off on every student media story before it’s published, which student journalist Ian Chen said does not address the concerns of the 160-plus students and teachers who spoke out against prior review last spring.
Chen, a junior at Richard Montgomery High School, filed a formal appeal with his parent today urging the district to reconsider the guidelines.
“We remain opposed to any administrator approval system,” Chen said. “Student journalists are the only reporters inside the school buildings, and often the only ones who care enough to cover the local school policies that impact thousands of students and families. If we’re subject to the approval of an administrator who has the power to delay, edit or even kill our stories, we lose the independent account of what’s actually happening in schools.”
The Student Press Law Center sent a letter to the district in support of Chen’s appeal.
“Since March, student journalists across Montgomery County have asked their district for one thing: to follow the law that protects their work,” wrote Jonathan Gaston-Falk, SPLC’s senior staff attorney. “They have earned a clear answer.”
Chief of Schools Peter Moran issued a guidance memo in March requiring administrators in all county schools to review student publications and censor broad categories of content, including “embarrassing or private moments.” The memo did not acknowledge the Maryland New Voices law, which makes student journalists responsible for the content of school-sponsored student media. The memo’s categories went beyond the four narrow situations in which the law allows prior restraint.
In June, more than 160 student journalists and teachers from all 25 of the county’s public high schools joined an open letter, led by Chen, opposing the memo and demanding the district follow state law.
Students and supporters, including SPLC, then testified before the Board of Education on June 25, and Chen filed a formal complaint through the district’s complaint process.
Following the significant pushback, MCPS issued new guidance to principals in September that acknowledges “student journalists should control and publish editorial content unless a specific legal or safety concern requires limited intervention.”
The accompanying checklist directs students, advisers and administrators to review every story and ends with a “Final Sign-Off,” including a box stating “The publication may proceed.” It sets a “responsive review timeline of 48 hours (weekends included).”
In supporting Chen’s appeal, Gaston-Falk wrote that the process turns the structure of the New Voices law “upside down.”
“A student editor whose story waits on an administrator’s sign-off is not ‘determining’ its content as § 7-121(c)(1) requires,” he wrote. “A routine 48-hour hold on every story, whether or not anyone has identified a concern, is the kind of delay the statute forbids.”
Gaston-Falk wrote that submitting every story to administrators will create an environment of self-censorship among students, even before an administrator blocks a story.
“The review requirement alone accomplishes the silence, and the community loses reporting it never knew it was missing. Maryland’s law was written exactly to prevent that loss,” he wrote.
Gaston-Falk, who raised the point in June testimony, wrote that universal review increases the district’s legal risk rather than reducing it, since every approved story becomes content the district signed off on.
The checklist also lists review categories broader than the law allows, such as “materially harmful” content, and the district has not said whether it has withdrawn the March memo that required the censorship of “embarrassing” content.
“Much of the most important journalism a student newspaper produces is, to someone, embarrassing. Accountability reporting usually is,” Gaston-Falk wrote.
SPLC asked the district to withdraw the March memo as it applies to student media, remove the “final sign-off” requirement, align the checklist’s standards with the law and confirm that the existing board-approved regulation governs any prior restraint in the district.
If the district denies Chen’s appeal, Maryland law provides further review by the Board of Education, the State Board of Education and the courts.
Chen said he will continue to fight for editorial independence for Montgomery County student journalists.
“The freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment must remain sacred if we want to keep institutions with power in check,” he said.
Follow the latest developments, key documents and news coverage in this case at splc.org/montgomerycounty