Forums come in three types: closed, limited and open. In a closed, and in some limited forums, freedom of expression does not have to be allowed. In some limited forums and in an open forum, freedom of expression, hence civic responsibility, is the cornerstone.

An example of a closed forum is a PTA newsletter. The owner of the forum can control its content. Censorship is allowed. Little learning about the role of a free press in a democracy would take place. Little learning about the various roles of journalism would take place.

• Students have no expectation of freedom of expression.
• Students should have no expectation of learning news or objective journalism.
• Students should have no expectation of creating original pieces.
• Students should have no expectation of decision-making.
• Hazelwood applies.

A limited forum can be limited to whatever the establisher of the forum wants it to be: a forum for sports coverage, for example. It can be reviewed, or not reviewed, by the originator’s designation. If reviewed, the owner of the forum has all the legal responsibility and control. If not reviewed, the students, for example, could be designated as being in charge and bear the freedoms and the responsibility.

A good many student media fall into this category where school districts trust their students, their advisers and their curriculum. Students learn about the media’s role in a democracy, and about their own civic responsibility. If education about the media’s role in a democracy and learning critical thinking and responsibility are the school’s mission, then the second type of limited forum is used.

In a limited-closed forum:
• Students have no expectation of freedom of expression.
• Students should have no expectation of learning news or objective journalism.
• Students should have no expectation of creating original pieces.
• Students should have no expectation of decision-making.
• Hazelwood applies.

In a limited-open forum:
• Students have an expectation of freedom of expression.
• Students should expect to learn news or objective journalism.
• Students should expect to create original material.
• Students should expect to make decisions.
• Tinker applies if there is no prior review.

The third category is an open forum, much like speaker’s corner in the United Kingdom. Anyone can speak, and the school (government) bears no legal responsibility. Schools can designate student media as open forums by policy or practice. This is noted within the Hazelwood decision, as is a limited open forum with student decision-making control.

Within the open and limited forums, students would certainly not publish any materials they found to be unprotected speech, or materials containing (added for clarity) libel, obscenity, material disruption of the school process (Tinker guidelines), unwarranted invasion of privacy and copyright infringement. Students would be taught this through a journalism curriculum by a trained adviser or through workshops and seminars available to an extracurricular publication.

• Students have an expectation of freedom of expression.
• Students should expect to learn news or objective journalism.
• Students should expect to create original material.
• Students should expect to make decisions.
• Tinker applies if there is no prior review.

School boards and student media
School boards, elected governing bodies of public schools in many states, set policies regulating school procedures. They do not manage day-to-day activity in schools, but can and do pass policies that may be counterproductive to an administrator’s view of student media.

Administrators should review school board policies that govern student free expression because they are charged with upholding school board and state code governance policies

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech and press freedom of all Americans, including students in school. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear these rights are not unlimited, it has also affirmed neither “students [nor] teachers shed their Constitutional rights to freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

In fact, free expression has long been regarded as the foundation of U.S. democracy. Thomas Jefferson perhaps said it best: “Our liberty depends on freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

The first direct experience most Americans have with press freedom, and the censorship that limits it, begins when they are in school working on student media. That’s why journalism educators, judges and First Amendment advocates have urged schools to support and foster student free expression because it is key to persuading young people “that our Constitution is a living reality, not [just] parchment preserved under glass.”