New Voices of Hawaii

For more on New Voices Hawaii, visit the Hawaii Scholastic Journalism Association.

Current Status: On May 23, 2022 Hawaii Governor David Ige signed into law HB 1848, making Hawaii the sixteenth state to adopt New Voices legislation.

2022: HB 1848 was passed by the full legislature in April 2022. Governor Ige has 45 days, excluding weekends and holidays, to act on the legislation.

2020: HB781, sponsored by Representative Takashi Ohno, and SB 214, sponsored by Senator Les Ihara, were introduced in January 2021. Neither bill was heard in 2021, but carried over to the 2022 session. In January 2022, House Speaker Scott Saiki introduced HB 1848, a duplicate version of the House legislation. All three bills prohibit the censorship of student journalists except in specific circumstances, and protect adviser from retaliation when they refuse to illegally infringe on their students’ rights. HB 1848 was approved by the House and Senate in April 2022 and sent to the Governor’s desk.

2020: The 2019-2020 legislative session brought New Voices legislation to Hawaii for the first time since the 1980s. Sponsored by Representative Takashi Ohno, HB 1529 has more than two dozen cosponsors, and carried over for consideration in 2020. In 2020, Senator Les Ihara, Jr. introduced SB 2608.

The Hawaii legislature refers legislation to multiple committees for their consideration. HB 1529 was unanimously approved by the Lower and Higher Education and Judiciary committees in February 2020, and an amended version was approved unanimously by the House Finance committee. The amended legislation was unanimously approved by the full House in March and swiftly approved by the Senate Education committee. However, the bill was stalled as a result of COVID-19’s impact on the legislative session. With a few amendments needed to perfect the legislation and a desire to avoid amending bills in conference committee during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Senate Judiciary committee deferred the bill.

The Senate committees did not hear SB 2608, but could have passed the House legislation without considering the Senate’s version.

Shortcuts:
• Get involved
• Why Hawaii needs New Voices
• Endorsements
• Recent news

Get involved

  • Contact your state legislators to let them know why this bill is important to you. Find out who your legislators are here. Not sure what to say? Check out our phone script and letter-writing tips here.
  • Submit your testimony directly to the legislature here.
  • Refine your thoughts with talking points, a printable flyer and other resources here.
  • Get looped in with volunteer coordinators to let them know about your efforts and learn about other ways to get involved:
  • Like and follow New Voices of Hawaii on Facebook.
  • Enlist all your friends in Hawaii to raise their voices in support of this measure, which ensures the basic First Amendment rights of student journalists and protects their advisers from retaliation.
  • If you are a student or adviser who was censored, intimidated or retaliated against, contact SPLC’s legal hotline.

Why Hawaii needs New Voices

Endorsements

You can see the list of national endorsers at the bottom of this page.

Recent news