Which case involved censorship of official school publications?

• A. Hazelwood v. Kulmeier
• B. Brown v. Board of Education
• C. Plessy v. Ferguson
• D. Miranda v. Arizona

Answer: (A)

When speech is part of a school-sponsored activity, the school has latitude to regulate that content. In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the administrators at a high school censored two pages of the school newspaper before publication, removing articles about divorce and teen pregnancy. The Court held that because the publication was part of a curricular program and produced under school sponsorship, the school could exercise editorial control to remove material it deemed inappropriate or not aligned with educational objectives. This establishes a standard that censorship of official school publications can be justified by legitimate pedagogical concerns.

This is different from cases about other aspects of student speech, which deal with whether students’ independent, non-school-sponsored expressions are protected. The other listed cases address desegregation in public schools and criminal rights, not censorship of school publications.