Administrators are smart people.
It quickly became clear that they
could censor pretty much anything
they wanted so long as they came
up with a reason. Over the years,
the most common reason material
was censored from the scholastic
press was not that students were
invading others’ privacy, inciting
to riot, or publishing obscene
material, but that what they were
honestly reporting “made the
school look bad.” More often than
not, Hazelwood became a tool
administrators used to hide the real
conditions in their schools from
parents and the school community.
In the early years after the
Hazelwood decision came down, a
flurry of states that were strong on
student press freedoms passed bills
to limit its effect in their schools.
Efforts to extend protections to
other states stalled. That is, until
North Dakota.
In 2015, the John Wall New Voices
Act passed both Republicancontrolled houses of the North
Dakota legislature and was signed
into law by Republican Governor
Jack Dalrymple. Named for late
beloved state representative and
former high school journalism
teacher John Wall, the bill’s passage
reignited interest in passing similar
bills nationwide.
As president of the Maryland-DC
Scholastic Press Association for
most of the last 20 years, I had
numerous times contacted and met
with legislators in the state to try to
garner interest in a free press law
for Maryland and found no support.
With the unanimous passage of the
bill in North Dakota and a clearly