In the backyard of the Hazelwood Supreme Court decision, I am organizing efforts for year seven of trying to get New Voices legislation passed in Missouri. The only thing that has passed in the last seven years are the states passing Missouri in adding this law that basically overrides Hazelwood and grants First Amendment rights…
By MITCH EDEN / Talk is cheap. Free speech isn’t. And that is what Missouri lawmakers must decide as they contemplate the Cronkite New Voices Act currently making its way through the state government. If passed, the bill, sponsored by Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, would protect student journalists and advisers from censorship unless content is libelous, illegal or an invasion of privacy. The act would override a decision in 1988 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which ruled that St. Louis high school students’ freedom of speech rights were not violated when the school’s principal prevented articles about teenage pregnancy and parental divorce from being published in the school newspaper.
By MITCH EDEN / We learned Monday the New Voices Cronkite Act (HB2058) is not being put up for vote by Sen. David Pearce. If this bill is not heard by Friday, it will die.