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New ND Law Bolsters Student Journalists' Free Speech Rights

Journalism students returning to North Dakota public schools this fall will be able to do their jobs at high school and college newspapers with stronger free-speech protections thanks to a new state law that observers are hoping will also spur changes nationwide.

The measure that took effect this month guarantees student journalists the right to exercise free speech in school-sponsored media, regardless of whether the school supports the media financially or students participate as part of a class. The law puts North Dakota among a few states that have enacted legislation meant to counteract a 1980s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said limits can be set on the free-press rights of high school students.

Under the new law, North Dakota school administrators can only exercise prior restraint of school-sponsored media if it is libelous or slanderous; constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy; violates federal or state law; or incites students to commit a crime, violate a school policy or disrupt school operations.

The executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington, Frank LoMonte, said the new law restores common sense to student journalism that existed before the high court's decision.

"Student journalism is a resource to the entire school community, but too often students are told they're not permitted to express any opinions or expose any facts that portray the school in an unflattering light," said LoMonte, who testified twice before North Dakota lawmakers when they were considering the bill. "We would never accept that from any other government agency. We would never, under any circumstances, allow a government agency to tell citizens that they have a duty not to criticize the government."

In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court gave public school officials broad power to censor student newspapers. In a 5-3 vote, the justices ruled that a high school principal in Hazelwood, Missouri, did not violate students' free-speech rights by refusing to permit publication of two articles — one on teen pregnancy, the other on the effect of divorce on children.

But the Supreme Court's ruling was limited and left open the possibility that states could pass laws expressly protecting student media rights — as North Dakota has now done.

North Dakota's move came as good news to James Murphy, an award-winning journalism adviser at West Fargo High School, who in 2009 was removed from his adviser post for two academic years because administrators believed he was failing to keep students from publishing criticism of the school's scheduling decisions and other policies.

"It was a time in which our district was experiencing a lot of growth," said Murphy, who's been a teacher for 11 years. "So, the district office expressed their desire to kind of keep everything positive, and they felt like I was not influencing what students were publishing enough; they wanted me to have a little bit more control over what students printed."

So far, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Massachusetts and Oregon have passed laws giving various levels of protection to student journalists who operate school newspapers. The Illinois law does not include protections for high school journalists.

The unanimous approval from the Republican-controlled North Dakota Legislature for the bill hasn't been lost on scholastic journalism groups across the country. LoMonte said a few states including Michigan, Maryland and Wisconsin have campaigns in the works to lobby state lawmakers to introduce similar legislation.

Jeremy Steele, the executive director of the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, said his group is hoping to find a sponsor for a similar bill by the end of the year.

"The student press community across the country was watching really closely as folks in North Dakota pursued this issue," Steele said. "I think a lot of folks thought you had to have maybe a left-leaning, liberal sort of legislature to push an issue like student-press rights, and instead, we found that it's the kind of issue that resonates with people regardless of party as long as they care about core American values."

(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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