In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988),
the U.S. Supreme Court refused to extend free press protections to student
newspapers at the high school level, supporting an administrator's
decision to remove two articles prior to publication. The majority held
that “First Amendment rights of students are not automatically
coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings, and must be
applied in light of the special characteristics of the school
environment.” They claimed that school newspapers were not a
“forum for public expression,” and authorized the prior
restraint exercised by the administrator “so long as [his]
actions [were] reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical
concerns.”