In February, a U.S. district court judge denied the student journalists’ request to prohibit the school district from conducting further prior review of the Wooster Blade. However, the judge did recognize that the student newspaper had greater protection than provided by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hazelwood ruling because the school had opened the publication as a public forum for student expression.
Tag: Winter 2003-04
High court to hear case that could determine minors' rights
For the second time in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a law that punishes commercial Web site operators who make sexual material deemed “harmful” available online to minors younger than 17.
Rulings emphasize Tinker standard
Erasing any uncertainty between the boundary of school authority and students’ right to free speech, two federal courts ruled this fall that schools cannot prohibit students from wearing controversial T-shirts.
Schools target advisers as scapegoats
This fall, while students reported the hard facts about underage drinking and anti-war sentiments, advisers at three high schools found themselves being used by administrators as scapegoats and excuses to censor the student press.
A Light in the Darkness?
In 2001, Dieringer was drugged and raped by a fellow student. But like many victims of crime on university campuses, she was not granted access to the results of her perpetrator’s hearing. Since the incident, Dieringer has tried to speak out against what she calls Georgetown’s unfair disclosure policies and FERPA’s overly broad protection for student criminals.
Locked Out
Police at 3 private universities block access to arrest records
Harvard University in Massachusetts, Cornell University in New York and Taylor University in Indiana all argued this fall that campus police at each school are not subject to state open-records laws because they are not public agencies.
Newspaper loses fight for disciplinary records
A commercial newspaper cannot access disciplinary records of students in the Vermont state college system, but it can learn the “final results” of some campus crimes, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in September.
Texas jury finds superintendent guilty of violating open-records act
After a four-day trial and five hours of jury deliberation, Patton was sentenced to a six-month probated jail sentence and a $1,000 fine for not responding to a local newspaper’s request to see detailed expense reports on the use of district credit cards.
Supreme Court declines to hear Earnhardt autopsy photos case
The U.S. Supreme Court in December declined to hear an appeal by the University of Florida student newspaper to reconsider a lower court’s ruling that kept photographs of racecar driver Dale Earnhardt’s autopsy private.