Hawaii high school journalists will have to wait yet another year to express their First Amendment rights in print without fear of censorship from their administration after the state Judiciary committee deferred the bill Tuesday morning. It is now dead for the legislative session.
“On this one … in normal times I would move it along and try to figure something out in conference,” state Sen. Karl Rhoads, chairman of the Judiciary committee, said during the hearing. “But these are not normal times, and it’s not ready to go.”
House Bill 1529 Opens in a new tab would have allowed public high school journalists to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of the press without censorship or the risk of disciplinary action by the school administration, although libelous or obscene material would be excluded from the protections offered by the bill.
The measure protects student media advisers from being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred or retaliated against for allowing students to exercise their rights as student journalists.
Under the bill, which has been dubbed the Hawaii Student Free Expression Act, school officials would have the burden of promptly justifying any limits they place on publication of the students’ journalism. The bill was introduced last year but did not receive a hearing in 2019.
Rhoads (D, Downtown-
Nuuanu-Liliha) clarified in an interview that he was initially in support the of the measure, but he said there were too many corrections needed.
He cited multiple concerns about the measure’s language Opens in a new tab: the definition of a school-sponsored media, whether student journalists may include high school and college students, defining more what hate speech includes and more.
“So all-in-all it wasn’t done, and we just didn’t have time to do it,” he said in an interview. “I’m generally supportive of the concept, and I think there’s a very good possibility that next session we’ll move something.”
Many advocates thought the bill would pass, and basically all of the testimonies were in full support.
Larry Wayman, media adviser for Farrington High School’s newspaper, said he was disappointed and shocked that it didn’t make it.
“Where do I start?” he said. “I think the impact on the trust that journalism instructors have for their students and the confidence that the instructors have for their students. … This is an unfortunate development,” he said. “One of the things that’s part of a curriculum in teaching journalism is real responsibility and accountability for what the students think and what the students write.”
Wayman said his students follow the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, which is to be accountable and transparent.
Cindy Reves, media adviser for McKinley High School’s student newspaper, said in an interview that she’s pleased the bill made it this far compared with last year.
“If it hadn’t been for COVID-19, perhaps we could’ve been in person and been able to answer questions, but unfortunately, that’s not the case,” she said. “We couldn’t be there to answer questions, and so we’re just going to have to answer the questions now in preparation for next year.”
