Student speech has and continues to be a contested issue in schools. The Supreme Court ruled in "Tinker" that students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate; in the "Kuhlmeier" and "Fraser" decisions, however, the Court gave school officials greater latitude in regulating student speech, especially when it…

The purpose for this article is to explore the juxtaposition of legal expectations, conflicting community cultural values, and the role of the superintendent in these connected but often conflicting issues. The authors explore several issues through the lens of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, the "Equal Access Act," and the role of the…

Updated for the first time since 2005, this indispensable volume includes revised interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights along with key intellectual freedom guidelines and policies, including: (1) A new chapter, "Interactivity and the Internet," and other fresh material on intellectual freedom and privacy in online social…

This paper highlights trends in values education in public secondary schools, crucial issues in both religious and secular values education, and effective strategies for teaching values in formal and invisible curricula. A review of the history of values education in the public schools is accompanied by relevant research pertaining to the…

The extent to which public school students deserve First Amendment rights and the values and interests regarding public schooling that should limit student free speech are explored. Eight chapters are entitled: "Pursuing Excellence and Order"; "The Emergence of Children's Rights"; "Free Speech and Public Education";…

Americans traditionally have looked to the public schools to play a role in transmitting society's values to students, and on various occasions the U.S. Supreme Court has emphasized the role of the nation's schools in inculcating basic values. For many years Maine has had a statute mandating the teaching of virtue and morality and another that…

Nord discusses why religion has disappeared from public school textbooks and explores the significance of this absence for assessing whether the textbooks are religiously neutral. Argues that an understanding of politics, history, economics, and sociology demands the study of religion. Yusof, the responder, points out that the First Amendment does…

Guided by First Amendment principles, Americans must agree on a shared civic framework within which to negotiate our deepest differences. A painful first step is acknowledging public education's failure to find a constitutionally permissable, educationally sound role for religion in the schools. This situation has helped convince religious…

Replying to an earlier article, the author makes a number of assertions, including that the constitution mandates religious neutrality, not hostility, and that the liberal elite object to the views of the religious only when the views are not politically liberal. (Author/JM)

Five articles by newsmen who have been jailed for refusing to answer questions regarding news sources are given. Each article describes the circumstances of these confrontations between individual freedoms and state laws. (KM)

Children should have the same First Amendment rights as adults except when it can be empirically shown that the children in question differ from minimally normal adults in relevant intellectual competencies and would, as a result, be likely to suffer harm if accorded full First Amendment liberties. In this paper, specific principles derived from…

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of teenagers toward the First Amendment, to compare the attitudes of Florida teenagers with those of non-Florida teenagers, and to compare the attitudes of journalism students with teenagers not in journalism classes. A total of 430 students from Florida high schools and 457 from high…

Drawing on the writings of scholars in the field, this report presents the case for increased parental control over the education of children. It begins by maintaining that the American public school has fallen from favor mainly because of a decline in academic achievement and the replacement of the teaching of basic skills with social…

In October 2001, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act to strengthen the ability of the U.S. government to combat terrorism. Unfortunately, some sections of the Act strike at core values and practices of libraries and archives, especially in the areas of record keeping, privacy, confidentiality, security, and access to the collections. This article…