by Maya Koeppen ‘17

Maryland has become the latest state to grant high school and college journalists the same First Amendment rights as other members of the media. On April 26, Senate President Mike Miller and Speaker of the House Michael Busch approved the New Voices Maryland Act that Governor Larry Hogan signed it into law.

Introduced by Democratic Senators Jamin Raskin and Jim Rosapepe on February 5, this anti-censorship law allows both high school and college student journalists to exercise their freedom of press and speech in school-sponsored media regardless of whether the school supports the publication financially.

This legislation also protects students and their advisers from administrative restraint prior to publication as well as from punishment afterwards. As the first state of the new year to get a New Voices bill through state legislature, the passing of this bill marks significant progress in the nationwide movement for student press rights.

Gary Clites, a journalism and film teacher at Northern High School in Owings Mills, as well as the current president of the Maryland-DC Scholastic Press Association, is a staunch advocate for the bill and student press freedom. Since first becoming president of the association in the 1990s, Clites has been working towards a free press bill in Maryland alongside Frank LoMonte, the president of the Student Press Law Center, and Rebecca Snyder, executive director of the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association. Their advocacy, as well as the passing of a bill with similar purposes in North Dakota, gave the bill the energy and support it needed to make it all the way to the state legislature.

“I sincerely believe now that this bill is signed into law, it will strengthen the teaching of journalism across the state. For the first time in nearly three decades, journalism students will be able to make the kinds of editorial decisions real journalists make without fear of frivolous censorship by administrators,” said Clites.

Despite its widespread support, there are some who are still hesitant about the amount of power and influence the bill would grant to student journalists and their advisers. John Woolums, the director of governmental relations for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, opposed some aspects of the bill. While the association supports the majority of the bill, it worries that the authority of the school would be far too limited in the process. These concerns, along with others, prompted the addition of amendments to the law in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Amendments added in the House gave high school administrators the ability to limit profane, vulgar, lewd or obscene language, or any other language that has the intent to harass, threaten or intimidate others. A Senate amendment added in March prohibits the student media advisers from exerting their position in order to influence their students to promote a particular position in their publication.

Starting on October 1, the Maryland New Voices Act will take effect, granting Maryland students the free press rights shared by their professional counterparts. “The key is to be journalistically responsible in everything we write or create. That should be the goal of every responsible journalist,” said Clites.