In March 2023, four student journalists at Mountain View High School in California published an investigative piece about an on-campus student sexual harassment allegation case. The report described instances of male students sending explicit and unsolicited messages and photographs to other students. However, before the story could be published, the school’s principal reviewed the copy and pressured the student journalists to make changes, resulting in at least a dozen substantive revisions.
This conflict didn’t end with the article’s publication. The school publication’s faculty adviser, Carla Gomez, was removed from her position and the school’s Introduction to Journalism course was eliminated. Alleging violations of California’s student press freedom law and state labor protections, Gomez and two of the student journalists sued the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District and Principal Kip Glazer.
More than three years later, the case is still without conclusion. On October 20, a Santa Clara County judge rejected the district’s motion for summary judgment, allowing the lawsuit to proceed to trial, scheduled to begin November 23. The district and principal have disputed the plaintiffs’ allegations, arguing that their actions were justified by concerns about the article’s potentially defamatory content. The judge’s decision means the disputed claims will continue to move through court.
This specific case reflects a challenge that many student journalists are facing in scholastic programs and newsrooms all across the country. Although students have constitutional, and in some instances, legal protections for the kind of reporting they’re entitled to publish, school administrators still have substantial control over what actually gets seen by the public.
Student journalists have First Amendment protections, which ensures their freedom of speech and freedom of the press. That being said, the protections given to student journalists differ from the rights of reporters in professional newsrooms. Two Supreme Court rulings can help explain this difference and how it developed.
In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Supreme Court ruled that students maintain their First Amendment rights in school environments. The decision established that schools generally cannot restrict student expression simply because it is unpopular or controversial. Restrictions can only be made when speech substantially disrupts school life or threatens the rights and safeties of others.
But nearly two decades later, in the case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), the Supreme Court established a more nuanced standard for school-sponsored publications. Administrators at a Missouri high school were granted the authority to remove a story in the school newspaper regarding teenage pregnancy and divorce. Since the publication was under the authority of the school, the Court allowed educators to exercise editorial control when their decisions were reasonably related to student safety and learning concerns.
The distinction between the two court cases demonstrates the balance between present day guidelines in student press freedoms. While students’ most basic First Amendment freedoms are technically protected, publications under school administration can often be influenced by higher powers when it’s deemed to be potentially harmful.
The result of such tensions is a recent push by student journalists to restore stronger press freedoms. These efforts have taken the title of the New Voices movement.
As of 2026, 18 states have enacted New voices laws. The legislation varies by state, but the laws generally establish that student editors rather than adult administrators are responsible for editorial control over their own student media, with some exceptions.
The first state to pass this type of legislation was California, under California Education Code Section 48907. Public high school student editors now have the authority to determine the general content of school-sponsored media, with restrictions on obscene, libelous, or slanderous content that would create clear dangers or disruptions for the law or school policies.
The law not only protects students, but also defends student media advisers from retaliation for refusing to infringe upon their students’ press rights. This is crucial for educators like Mountain View High School’s Carla Gomez, who was targeted in the dispute with administrators to avoid direct retaliation against her students.
Such laws are not uniform nationwide however, and students in states without New Voices legislation may have substantially fewer safeguards for their press freedoms. The case-by-case distinction between controversial content and content that actually constitutes legitimate restrictions levels room for dispute and legal challenges.
For student journalists, editorial independence represents more than stylistic or topical autonomy. It also represents the ability for student journalists to use the media they produce as a vessel for change and activism. Student journalism allows students to challenge existing power structures, reveal potential systemic issues, and advocate for underrepresented topics they may feel passionately about.
For schools, maintaining an independent and liberated student publication can require accepting that students may criticize the institution itself. On the other hand, for students, that independence comes with the responsibility to ensure that their stories are fair, accurate and thoughtful, even when the subject may be controversial.
Many organizations are working to play their part in the greater fight for fair student press freedoms. The Student Press Law Center, for example, is a nonprofit organization that provides legal support and resources to student journalists. It has also continued to advocate for the adoption of New voices laws across states. Much of its mission is education based, seeking to ensure that students are aware of their rights and that schools know how to implement fair policies for their campus publications.
Similarly, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression provides a phone number hotline for university aged journalists for immediate guidance and support against campus censorship attempts. Although its work primarily focuses on higher education, it reflects a broader effort to protect student journalists’ ability to report independently across educational settings.
Ultimately, the debate over student press freedom challenges the role school newspapers play within their communities. Student publications are often among the few outlets reporting directly on the experiences of their classmates, examining school policies and questioning decisions made by administrators. Their ability to do that work depends on access to information, editorial independence and protections against retaliation.
