The Student Press Law Center is an advocate for student First Amendment rights, for freedom of online speech, and for open government on campus. The SPLC provides information, training and legal assistance at no charge to student journalists and the educators who work with them.
Americans have never been more reliant on students to bring them the day's news. We make sure students can fearlessly share ideas and information free from retaliation.
We're shining a spotlight in the dark crevices of campuses where financial mismanagement and safety hazards hide. Citizen engagement starts with open, accountable government.
A Tennessee school district’s technology and internet policy, which allows school administrators to examine electronic devices students bring from home and monitor communications or data transmitted on the district’s network, violates students’ rights to free speech and protection against “suspicionless searches,” The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a letter to the district Monday.
The Department of Public Safety at Pepperdine University is accusing three students of taking more than 700 copies of six issues of the student newspaper. Two of the students, the paper's adviser said, admitted they took the papers for a prank on a friend.
Isabelle Murray, the impeached Tempe Undergraduate Student Government senator, spoke to a reporter of The State Press, the student newspaper at the university, earlier in October about a bill she was working on regarding black face paint at football games.
An eye-popping July 2014 report from the Pew Research Journalism Project, “America’s Shifting Statehouse Press,” documents the near-extinction of the statehouse press corps across America: Since 2003 – and state governments were under-covered even then – the number of full-time reporters working in state Capitols is down 35 percent.
Two members of Auburn University’s Student Government Association have admitted to stealing more than 1,000 copies of The Auburn Plainsman's Aug. 28 issue in an attempt to censor an editorial criticizing changes to a campus shuttle bus service.
The Broken Bow Public Schools board unanimously approved the new senior photographs policy Monday, which states high school seniors can pose with “an item that is ordinarily considered a weapon (rifle, shotgun, knife, etc).”
While it's true that these are are factors in figuring out the scope of rights, it's not that simple.
You can't be punished for opposing censorship — at least, not lawfully — as long as you don't break any laws or rules in how you choose to protest.
We spend a lot of time learning about how the First Amendment is supposed to work and very little time learning what to do when it doesn't.
We need everyone's support to keep the SPLC's services free and readily available, and the backbone of support comes from contributing SPLC members.
Become a member of the ARN and provide legal representation to student journalists in need.
Have you experienced censorship as a student or educator? Share your story and how it’s affected you.
Become an SPLC Surrogate Speaker. Use this packet to share the history and mission of the Student Press Law Center with new audiences.
