High school student journalists could receive more free press protections for their reporting under a bill introduced in the Kentucky state Senate.
Senate Bill 40, also known as the New Voices Act, would give student reporters the right to exercise their freedom of expression through school-sponsored media. Advocates say the bill would allow journalists at public high schools to write about controversial topics about the world or the school district itself and eliminate school leaders’ authority to censor that material.
Owensboro native Khoa Ta is the Policy Coordinator for the Kentucky Student Voice Team. They said they were discouraged in their media class from pursuing stories about controversial topics.
“At the start of the year, the first thing in that media class they mentioned was when writing like an article for the school or anything like that, or for the district itself, it can’t be politicized,” Ta said.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that schools have the right to censor content in student newspapers if it does not align with the school’s educational mission.
Reporters at Calloway County High School’s Laker Review say they have also had issues with censorship of their paper. Co-Editor and senior Isabella Rodriguez said the paper was not allowed to publish an article about gun rights two years ago.
“We couldn’t publish it without, I believe we had to state that it wasn’t the opinion of the entire Laker Review staff or the school, and it was solely represented by the writer himself,” Rodriguez said.
Milana Ilickovic is a senior at Bullitt East High School and the president of New Voices Kentucky, a student-led organization that has led the charge for this bill. She said this bill would enable student voices to be heard and report on hot-button issues in their areas.
“I feel like other people are scared about putting the word out about a controversial story, and this kind of limits any opportunity for censorship,” Illickovic said.
Rodriguez said student journalists like her rely on their school-sponsored media to express themselves and make sure their voices are heard.
“Writing and journalism is a way for you to express the feeling that you have over things that are going on in your country, your school, the world,” Rodriguez said. “Within journalism, I found my voice. I can speak on things I like to talk about, like controversial topics, things that are important to me that I can’t necessarily touch on within a classroom or within my community.”
Additionally, the bill would also protect student media advisors from professional retaliation for defending their students’ work.
The New Voices bill was first introduced in Kentucky in 1990, and has been introduced seven other times in the legislature. It has been introduced every year since 2020.
The bill has been assigned to the Education Committee.
