(MCT) — Twenty-two years ago, the Iowa Legislature reacted to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively reduced the First Amendment rights afforded to student journalists.
States are allowed to provide additional free speech protection for their citizens by enacting state laws or regulations and the 1989 implementation of the Iowa Student Free Expression Law is such a provision. It provides student journalists attending Iowa public high schools with added protection against administrative censorship.
Fast forward to this month. For the first time, the Iowa Appeals Court was dealing with that law that offers these further protections. The court sided with high school journalism teacher Ben Lange, who had taken the Allamakee Community School District and Waukon High School Principal Dan Diercks to court after Lange was disciplined for allowing articles in the school newspaper that district officials claimed could cause disruption.
Lange contended that he was being unlawfully punished for speech that he was forbidden from stopping under the Iowa Student Free Expression Law.
A district court had first ruled in favor of the school district. The Iowa Court of Appeals reversed that decision because officials couldn’t point out any specific articles that encouraged students to break rules.
A three-judge panel for the court wrote: “Publishing articles on controversial topics or expressing a viewpoint counter to that of the school administration are not prohibited by the Student Free Expression Law.”
It’s reasonable to believe that the reason this is the first time the appeals court has dealt with this law has a lot to do with the employer/employee dynamic.
Lange was reprimanded by the school district. He felt he was wronged and he followed through by using the court process to remove the blemishes from his employment records.
According to the Student Press Law Center, Iowa is one of at least seven states that have passed laws limiting the effects of the original Supreme Court ruling.
“If a school district is entitled to sanction a journalism advisor for student publications that comply with (the state statute), the statutory protections will be eroded and student speech will be chilled,” the appeals court said.
We commend those Iowa lawmakers, back in 1989, who saw fit to seek this added protection. We applaud Lange for knowing this law, and for fighting to see it upheld. And we are heartened that the latest ruling will lead to the clearing of his personnel file.
At the end of the day, we believe it has become a worthy lesson for those young people studying journalism.