Tag: First Amendment

Young journalists grasp meaning of First Amendment

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BY JOHN JARVIS / My 26-year journalism career has led to a collection of Facebook friends who either have been, or still are, in the same line of work. Because of this, I came across a post on a friend’s Facebook page a few days ago that grabbed my attention – and the attention of some of my former co-workers, too. My friend’s post noted that the student newspaper at Oklahoma University, the Oklahoma Daily, ran an editorial Oct. 3 titled “KKK rallies shouldn’t be allowed.” The lead paragraph reads: “A Maryland-based Ku Klux Klan group planned to rally at Gettysburg National Military Park on October 5. It’s mind-boggling that KKK groups still have the audacity and will to exist in today’s society, but what’s more surprising is the fact that they were granted a special permit to hold an event there.” The editorial goes on to say that “the KKK should not be allowed to hold rallies for a number of reasons,” including the KKK’s history of hate crimes against blacks and certain religious groups.

Missouri bill curtailing First Amendment rights may pass

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BY WILLIAM FREIVOGEL / The Missouri Legislature may override a veto next week and enact the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” a bill that virtually reads the First Amendment out of the Constitution. The law makes it a crime to publish a story identifying a person as a gun-owner. The First Amendment isn’t the only part of the Constitution that the bill would ignore. In a throwback to the doctrine of “Nullification” that paved the way for the Civil War, HB 436 would nullify federal gun laws going back to 1934.

AEJMC releases resolution on 25th anniversary of Hazelwood decision

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The board of directors of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals, recently passed a resolution regarding the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court significantly reducing the level of First Amendment protection afforded to students’ journalistic speech in the case of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. In the ruling, the court’s 5-3 majority concluded that schools could lawfully censor student expressions in non-public forum media for any “legitimate pedagogical purpose,” and that among the recognized lawful purposes was the elimination of speech tending to “associate the school with any position other than neutrality on matters of political controversy.”

AEJMC releases statement on leak prosecutions

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The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is committed to freedom of speech and the press in the United States and abroad. AEJMC believes that this commitment must include a free exchange of information and ideas, even some information that the U.S. government considers or wishes to be “secret.” The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and the existence of clandestine CIA prisons are examples in which secret government information was leaked to, and publicized, by the news media. In these and in many other cases, the dissemination of secret information served a greater good to American society by informing the public and by allowing for a needed debate on the ethics of secret government policies and covert actions. We believe that a democracy shrouded in secrecy encourages corruption, and we agree, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the U.S. Supreme Court said, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Tinker encourages high school students to take a stand

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“Stand up. Speak out.” Those were words of advice from Mary Beth Tinker to more than 600 St. Louis area high school students. Tinker, who was a defendant in the landmark First Amendment case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, was the keynote speaker at the Sponsors of School Publications of Greater St. Louis Spring Conference at Webster University March 11.