After articles discussing teen pregnancies, divorce and runaways were removed from a pending issue of Hazelwood East High School’s student publication The Spectrum by former principal Robert Reynolds, editor Cathy Kuhlmeier and two of her peers sued the school district for infringing upon their First Amendment rights. Reynolds reasoned that schools are not required to distribute student speech that does not align with their “basic educational mission.” The case was eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a 5-3 ruling established that if a student newspaper is not considered a public forum or consistent with a school’s educational goals, a school has the authority to limit it. However, Kuhlmeier’s attorney, Leslie Edwards, failed to mention critical details which could have resolved the case in favor of the Hazelwood students.
What inspired you and the former editors of The Spectrum to write stories focused on serious topics, such as one on teen pregnancy and divorce?
Our newspaper had generally done stories that we called pretty or fluffy stories, and they were never really anything that was hard hitting that really ever made a difference to anybody, and we didn’t want to be that type of staff. So, we did some research through what’s called The Morgue–which was past story editions and story ideas–and we came across some similar topics, and we decided that we wanted to update those because the problem still existed.
Why do you think it is important for student journalists to write in-depth stories that cover controversial topics?
Kids have a right to know important things, too, and you guys are smart and you have brains that enable you to think and critically think and do it well. If you don’t get the taste of journalism in junior high or high school or college, where will that actually ever develop from? How do you know if it’s something that you want to proceed and do as a career in life?
What was your reaction, after working deliberately to ensure your stories were accurate and of quality, to having them removed by your principal?
Well, we were very upset, obviously, because it didn’t get published; but, it was also kind of just hurtful that he didn’t have the courtesy to come and talk to us himself. We had to go to him and ask questions to get it and to gain an understanding of what was going on with the matter.
What motivated you to take this situation to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri?
We were just following the direction of what the American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU, was
telling us, because being high school kids, we didn’t understand any of the processes or what our rights were, and that was their recommendation to escalate and let them know we were serious about publishing the articles.
What was your reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that your former principal’s actions did not violate students’ free speech rights?
Well, that was a really sore subject. My attorney, Leslie Edwards, didn’t have the courtesy to call and tell me. I found out the decision—I didn’t even know it was actually being heard. She never told me, which was a violation of my legal rights, because anytime something is presented in court and it carries your name, you’re supposed to be notified. I wasn’t notified. Leslie and Leanne both were, and they both got to go and be part of the hearings, but I didn’t get to go.
To take that one step further, Ms. Edwards never called to tell me that ‘Hey, by the way, it was heard. Hey, by the way, we lost.’ I found out on Jan. 13, 1988, from a local reporter for the St. Louis Missourian calling me, asking me for a comment, so I didn’t have any nice comment that I could say. I figured it was better to listen to that mother’s rule: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
How does it feel to play such a large role in a U.S. Supreme Court Landmark case?
It’s still, 40 years later, kind of hard to get your head around and know that I did something like that. Really, it was just wanting to help our student body, so I don’t feel like I’m any different, any better than anybody else. I just wanted to talk about what mattered to kids in our school and to try and make a difference.
What did you learn from this experience?
Always check before you hire an attorney to make sure they’re good.
I don’t know if it’s a learning thing, but it shaped me into who I am now, because I am that protective mama bear; I stand up for the underdogs. I want things to be handled as they should. Or maybe somebody doesn’t have a voice, or they’re afraid to stand up and say something that I’m not afraid to. I’m not afraid to challenge authority and take things… by the horns and challenge it, and it has shaped me as the mother that I am to my kids. It is also my son, when he was born, had a rare birth defect, and I took on the insurance company because they didn’t want to pay for the medical treatment that he needed. I took on the insurance company and I won.
When my daughter was a sophomore in high school, out of the blue, she developed epilepsy, and she had already gotten a full ride scholarship. But, when she got into college after that, she started, because of the epilepsy, losing her ability to listen to a lecture and remember what she heard. It would just literally go in one ear and out the other. Her scholarship was GPA based, and she was failing, and I took on the university for her, and together, we won, and she graduated with honors.
It’s just standing up and doing the right thing. I want to be that person. I don’t want to be someone different if nobody’s looking versus when somebody is. I want to be that same person consistently. I think more people think that that’s a form of character in people, and I think people should hopefully try and adopt that because how often do you see people that are basically two faced? They’re… nice when they’re in front of you, and then turn your back and they’re like talking about you. I don’t want to be that girl.
Why do you think a school or any entity should not interfere with work being published by students?
I think at some point that they need to trust their faculty, trust that the advisor is well educating their students, that they are capable and competent of making good decisions, because it does prepare them for further down the road in life. I generally think that most people have good intentions, especially journalists, because they are great kids, but it’s building that trust and rapport, where as a journalist, you should be able to have a good open door policy and go back and talk to your administration, and if they question you on something, talk to them about it. Why do you feel this way? Why can’t we do this? What could we do differently? And then tell them your stance on where you’re at with things.
If you could give any advice to your younger self who partook in that years long legal battle, what would it be?
Know who the attorney is, but never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. It was totally, really just trusting in the process that we would be able to help somebody, and knowing as a journalist that your stories won’t always reach and impact everybody, but if you make a difference to one person, you’ve done your job.
I’m gonna go off from that question just a little bit, just to give you some background on why I say that. Not everybody in high school is gonna be pregnant. Not everybody’s gonna have divorced parents or run away or what have you. The reason that the story on runaways meant the most to me…is [because] during that point in time I worked at Target, and I had a friend named Reggie that I was working with on a Saturday afternoon. I didn’t know Reggie was actually running away. Reggie went into the bathroom of Target and [died by] suicide, and I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, had those articles run, maybe, since there were hotline numbers in the stories, that maybe Reggie would have made a phone call and maybe he’d still be here. That’s why, as a journalist, your job matters, because you want to help somebody else.
Describe how your experience has been talking with state legislatures across the country about New Voices USA, a student-powered nonpartisan grassroots movement that seeks to protect student press freedom with state laws.
I think it’s great because aside from me telling my story, I get to hear what’s happening to you guys. I get to hear what’s happening to advisers, and let them know that there is hope for it, that we can make a difference and people coming together and talking about their experiences is where it starts. That’s why, to me, it has become something more than of a passion.
Work for my life is to continue to encourage kids to talk about what matters to them, and it may not be something that has to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it’s something that matters to you, and if it matters to you, then it may matter to somebody else, so talk about it. Through New Voices, the more forces we can gain together, the more ground we can cover and hopefully get more states to pass the laws.
What is your advice to students seeking to implement a New Voices bill in their state?
Talk about it. Talk. Talk about it, build that momentum between other students and help them understand why the communication matters. Talk to your parents about it because typically those are the people that are of the voting age.
Then get to the people that make the decisions, talk to representatives, talk to senators, write letters, send emails… fill their inboxes, but let them know why it matters. Put your face in front of them.
Say, ‘Hey, look, we’re a group of high school students, and we care about our rights as a student journalist, and because of Hazelwood, we don’t have those rights. Would you partner with us to help make a difference for future high school students?’
Just gain that momentum, just let it be a big deal.
What have been some of your greatest achievements regarding New Voices?
Seeing the states that are passing [New Voices laws] and just getting to be a part of that. For me, it’s really just watching kids that still care. It’s the same thing with going to the national journalism conferences: to see the excitement of the kids about journalism or getting noticed again, not that I’m a big deal, because I don’t consider that at all–but when they’re excited about meeting somebody that’s part of history, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re really not that old.’ That part is fun.
Is there anything you would like to add?
There’s just a whole lot more to the story than what is in the textbooks they give you. In the textbook, the 10,000 foot view level, if you will…They don’t talk about the things that really, truly happened.
For example, they just mentioned that there were stories that were rejected. They don’t mention the fact that the articles have been previously published 10 years before. Underneath a different principal, we had interviewed everybody, gotten consent, written consent, from the students that were quoted in the paper, as well as their parentals, so that the parents knew what was going on.
There were no names left in any of it [the paper], and there was a blurb that said “all of the names have been changed because we were protecting their identity.”
None of that’s mentioned [in textbooks], but if you go, and you read the dissent from Justice Byron [who wrote the court’s majority opinion], he says that the principal acted in, quote, ‘fear that the students could be identified.’
Now our attorney didn’t bring any of that up…because that was the reason they objected. The reason that they ruled how they did–so we lost–on the basis of poor representation.
The day that we went to the principal’s office, and we said, ‘can you tell us what happened? Why are the article censored?’ He goes, ‘Oh, those articles, they’re trash. They’re too mature for an immature audience.’
And I said, ‘Well, if you’re old enough to get pregnant, shouldn’t you be old enough to read about it?’ Well, he didn’t like that.
It’s not like we were giving the how to’s; we were saying to think about what you’re doing, because you’re impacting not just those students involved in that act.
Twelve to 13 years ago, I was doing a symposium at the University of Kansas City Law School, and it’s the first time that I have come face to face with Mr. Reynolds in many, many years, and we’re in a panel discussion. They asked the question of why he really censored the paper.
And he said, ‘Oh, that was a budget problem. We didn’t have the money for it,’ and, ‘Oh, I never actually read the articles.’
Things like that, that are huge parts of the story, aren’t told until you get to talk to me or Leslie or Leanne and learn the insides of it. It makes me question now, did he read them? Did he not read them?… You’ve changed the course of history for many generations, and did you ever actually read the paper?
Also, they really kind of paint us to be not good kids, and I was in honor society, and I was in marching band and played soccer and was a thespian. I was doing all the right things. It’s not like I was one of the troublemakers causing problem.
There was a TV show back in the 80s called the Phil Donahue show. And basically it was the Oprah of the 80s. And we [the journalism students] got asked to go to Chicago to the Phil Donahue show and be on live TV and tell our story. And when I got back to school, I was told that I, because I didn’t personally ask his [the principal’s] permission, I could either be suspended or expelled because he didn’t want the community knowing that we had a pregnancy problem. And I said, ‘but I had my note. Here was my note from my mom.’ And as far as you know, your mom’s your authority, not your principal. You shouldn’t have to go ask your principal.
How did it feel like to be constantly censored while trying to speak up about your experience?
It was hard because, you know, kids aren’t always the nicest people, right? Some, I mean, some of them are your best friends. Some of them are just like, just want to poke at you.
High school is hard, and so kids that didn’t really understand were mean, some of the faculty was like, ‘Why are you causing this problem? Would you shut up?’
Mr. Reynolds, during my end of my senior year, he would follow me to make sure I wasn’t skipping classes. I never skipped classes. My chemistry teacher, Mr. Moore, would say, ‘would you leave her alone? She’s here. Leave her alone.’
I just had my 40th class reunion over the summer. I got to see some of the people that went to high school with, obviously, that didn’t get it. They came up to me and were like, I understand what you did, and I’m sorry for being a turd, but what you’re doing was really, was a big deal. It was really ultimately to help us, and now that we have kids of our own, and they’re studying the case, and they’re coming back to you saying, ‘isn’t this where you went to high school?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, I knew that girl.’ Now, they get it, and they’re like, ‘I’m sorry.’ It was kind of a full circle moment for me that to get the apologies for the people that were kind of cruel, and to say thank you for trying.
I think it’s something that I will take to my grave with me. I have a foundation now, and a board of directors that help the cause for student journalists, and I have required my two children that are now grown and married, to be a part of that, but I want them to understand the legacy of what I have tried to do, so that one day, hopefully they will carry on this as well, but it shaped them as who they are as people as well, that they get doing the right thing.
How did you find the passion and motivation to keep advocating for free speech rights despite all these challenges?
I feel like the Supreme Court and our attorney or the ACLU just got it so wrong that it was hurtful, that I felt like I was hurting the kids, that I let you guys down, and that was never my intention. It was to make things better for students, not to make it harder. And I don’t want to be that girl. want to be the one that they’re like, you’re still out there fighting for it, you’re still out there trying to help us. I want to be that person that you guys can hopefully look at one day and go, she did stand up. She was true to her word. Part of it is just my faith. You know, my religious faith of being there to help others.
This story was originally published in the March 2025 Eagle Eye print edition.
