<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3eCK3O_0wPLs95p00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3eCK3O_0wPLs95p00" width="1280" height="853" ></figure>Image: empowering-student-journalism_52994302220_o_OriginalHours earlier, Ben Shapiro had officially finished his sophomore year at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pa. It was summer. Shapiro entered the movie theater eager to see one of 2022’s summer blockbusters and send off the school year with his friend, Shreya Vaidhyanathan. He hadn’t been in a movie theater since before the COVID-19 pandemic.Shapiro left the movie theater to find numerous missed calls and emails on his phone.During his sophomore year, Shapiro — now a freshman at Northwestern University in Illinois — was a copy editor for his high school newspaper, The Spoke. Active journalists, both he and Vaidhyanathan were also involved in the Pennsylvania New Voices movement, a subgroup of the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), which pursued legislative First Amendment protections for student journalists in states nationwide.And they had just found out that The Spoke’s faculty advisor had been “relieved of her duties” as an advisor.Shapiro found it hard to believe that administrators could simply remove the advisor from some of her duties because “they didn’t like the direction the newspaper was going in… There were always little stories here and there where the administration tried to either not have us report on something or throw us in a different direction to report on something else, and I didn’t like that.”As of 2024, “New Voices” laws that explicitly protect the speech and press rights of student journalists and their faculty advisors exist in 18 U.S. states. Pennsylvania is not one of those states.Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan hope that won’t be the case for much longer.Learning the RopesThe Bulldog Press: the student newspaper of Tredyffrin-Easttown Middle School. Or, to Shaprio and Vaidhyanathan, the beginning of their journalism careers.Both students first encountered journalism as teenagers when they applied to the Press to merely fulfill an elective. They wrote rather mundane stories: marching band season updates and teacher features. “Being able to talk to people that I normally wouldn’t interact with was so cool to me,” Vaidhyanathan said. “I absolutely fell in love with the practice of being on a paper and being able to experience every avenue. And so now that I get to do that for the rest of my life is so cool.”Throughout high school, Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan rose through the ranks of The Spoke — by senior year, they were editor-in-chief and co-managing editor, respectively. But with that, the students became more aware of the challenging aspects of journalism, too. After attending a Student Leaders Institute seminar with the New Voices movement in ninth grade, they began regularly attending weekly New Voices meetings and learning about the many ways that student journalists face censorship and publishing oversight by administration, often without just cause.“There’s really no reason students should not hold the same First Amendment rights as everyone else — as professional journalists,” Shapiro said. “People think that they can censor students just because they are younger and don’t know what’s going on.”Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan realized that the restrictions that they and fellow student journalists across the nation had experienced was unfair and lacking legal justification. Inspired to change the narrative, the teens decided to take a stand — by taking it to none other than PA’s Capitol Hill. Fighting for SB 622In Harrisburg, the Student Journalism Protection Act is known as Senate Bill (SB) 622. SB 622 was written by SPLC, prepped with a team of writers and lawyers well-trained in creating legislation in ways that are more likely to be supported by politicians. At its core, the bill’s intent is to “allow school districts to implement policies to place administrative review in the hands of student editors to help ensure journalistic integrity,” according to the bill’s memorandum. Pennsylvania Sen. Carolyn Comitta of Senate District 19 — which encompasses part of Chester County — was the prime sponsor of the bill.Where Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan came in was advocating for the bill’s success.This past April, Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan testified before the Pennsylvania House Education Committee, where they plead the case for why their bill is valuable and should be adopted. They’ve spoken on panels educating high school students about legislative work, lobbied to legislators and spoken at the PA Capitol Media Center, and have successfully gained the support of interest groups like the PA School Teachers Union and the Society of Professional Journalists.The pair became well trained in the defense of their legislation — when lobbying, they frequently encountered politicians picking apart SB 622, of which they would have to respond to with well-developed arguments. Sometimes, they’d engage in up to 20-30 minute long discussions.“I remember on the car ride to Harrisburg, it was eight of us packed in a car and we were going around each of us giving our pitches for what our stake is in the bill and why we care,” Vaidhyanathan said. “And then we’d go around and say, ‘if a senator asks you this, what would you say?’”Despite the young activists’ intensive preparations, they were surprised to find that they were taken no less seriously than any other lobbyist. When visiting Harrisburg, Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan receive questions just as difficult as that any lobbyist would receive — which Shapiro says is all the more reason that student journalists should be treated the same as professional ones.“If any adult would reach out to a representative or senator, they might not get the quickest response, or any response,” Shapiro said. “Whereas if a student would reach out, these legislators would be interested because… talking with students is sometimes refreshing. People like talking to young people that are civically engaged.”Hazelwood’s lasting markIn the U.S., censorship of student journalism is nothing new. Since the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court case, Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, protection of students’ First Amendment rights has been ill-defined. In Hazelwood, a 5-3 court decision ruled in favor of administrative control over speech when Hazelwood East High School censored the publishing of student-written pieces about teen pregnancy and parental divorce.The court’s decision stated that administrators may be justified in censoring student media if they find work to be “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns,” leaving significant leeway for schools to interpret what “reasonable” and “legitimate” means for themselves. According to SPLC, the case defined allowable censorship of pieces deemed “poorly written,” “unsuitable,” “biased” or “inconsistent with the shared values of a civilized social order.” In effect, this decision set a precedent for journalistic proceedings not only at Hazelwood East, but all high schools in the U.S.Since then, lower courts have refined this decision, clarifying that school administrators do not have complete and unrestricted censorship abilities. If a publication is deemed a “public forum” — meaning a non-governmental arena for public speech — censorship will be less justifiable. The same goes if a publication is wholly independent from the school it serves — like many collegiate-level newspapers, but few high school ones.But that does not mean student journalists are entirely protected.In recent years in Pennsylvania, SPLC has heard cases of high school publications experiencing censorship over MAGA shirts in yearbook photos, newspaper coverage of the school’s book ban and investigations into high school administration’s decision-making. They heard about faculty advisors being punished for allowing students to publish articles on period products and vigils held by the student community.Infringements have even been happening at the collegiate level. In late September of this year, Penn State University’s independent newspaper, The Daily Collegian, faced censorship when university administration unilaterally removed newspaper stands around campus because multiple newsstands featured advertisements for Kamala Harris and voter registration. The Daily Collegian, publishing since 1887, is independent of the university.Persevering through time and distanceDuring their time advocating for the bill, one aspect that has most surprised the students has been how long and drawn out the legislative process truly is. Having joined New Voices their freshman years of high school, their bill still has not become law four years later.Since spring 2023, SB 622 has been stuck in committee, and given the existing makeup of the Pennsylvania legislature — where the Senate is Republican and the House is Democratic — it is highly unlikely the bill will get passed before this legislative session’s conclusion in November. In that case, SB 622 would need to be reintroduced in the new 2025 session.But that hasn’t stopped the students from fighting for the bill. Throughout their efforts, a major goal for New Voices has been diversifying the representatives in support of the bill by connecting with fellow student journalists across the state and imploring them to speak with their representatives about SB 622. Despite being a nonpartisan bill, all of the bill’s current sponsors are Democrats, and given the intense polarization affecting inter-legislator behavior, it is highly unlikely that Republicans will sign on any time soon. Shapiro and Vaidhyanathan also consider it important to increase awareness about the issue at the root of this legislation; many are unaware of the restrictions — intentional or unintentional — that gets placed on student journalists’ work.These days, both students are freshmen in college studying journalism, with Shapiro at Northwestern and Vaidhyanathan at The University of Texas at Austin. 1,132 miles separate the pair. They write for different newspapers now: The Daily Northwestern and The Daily Texan. Their passion for journalism is planning to stick around for a while, though.Olivia Schlinkman is a fourth-year Political Science student with minors in Journalism and Spanish.</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

Local Student Journalists Lobby in Harrisburg for First Amendment Protections

Image: empowering-student-journalism_52994302220_o_Original. Hours earlier, Ben Shapiro had officially finished his sophomore year at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pa. It was summer. Shapiro entered the movie theater eager to see one of 2022’s summer blockbusters and send off the school year with his friend, Shreya Vaidhyanathan. He hadn’t been in a movie theater since before the COVID-19 pandemic.