Filed under News, Showcase, State Campaigns, State Tracker, Video, Voices of the Movement
New Voices State Tracker
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New Voices USA is a network of state-by-state campaigns to pass anti-censorship legislation that will grant extra protections to student journalists. The movement is inspired by the success in North Dakota, where in 2015, the state legislature unanimously passed a bill that ensures the free-speech rights of journalism students in public schools and colleges. The Student Press Law Center tracks state-by-state laws and pending campaigns.
I was wondering if I could use the map in my story which is about the New Voice Legislation.
Absolutely!
Is this current as of April 6, 2017?
Please change the Green Mountain State to Green.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill this week. (We are no longer blue!) Thank you legislature and Governor.
Hello,
I am the adviser of a SNO middle school newspaper in Orange County, California. Do these laws also protect middle school reporters? I just had my principal inform me that the superintendent has stated for the first time that the questions any reporter may have for board members need to be sent to him first. What are my protections as a middle school journalism adviser in California?
The law in California applies to “pupils of the public schools” at all levels. http://www.splc.org/article/1977/02/california-student-free-expression-law-includes-adviser-protection-provision Please send us a message at director@splc.org or encourage your students to do so. If your students directly contact school board members, as is their legal right, the school cannot legally take any adverse action either against you for “refusing to censor” them or against the students. SPLC often writes letters to school districts to help them understand the law and this may be the right situation for such a letter. But please correspond with confidentially using that splc.org email and fill us in on the back-story that led to this order from the superintendent. Thank you for getting in touch!
So does this new bill overturn the previous case law Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al 484 U.S. 260?
What the bills do is create a STATE-protected right that supplements students’ federally protected rights (which, after Hazelwood, are not very protected). So Hazelwood is still on the books, but in a state with a New Voices law, students (and fired advisers) do not have to rely on the federal First Amendment to protect themselves, because they can rely on state law instead. States give people more than the bare minimum of constitutional rights all the time. So that’s how the laws work — they don’t exactly “overrule” Hazelwood, but they make Hazelwood irrelevant.
I have started a campaign in Ohio. How do I registrar with this web site? I am very passionate about student free speech.
So glad to hear from you! Message me at flomonte@splc.org and we’ll start working together, including setting up an Ohio section on the website and creating an Ohio Facebook page. Thanks, we think Ohio very much ought to be a New Voices state.