Returning to <i>Hazelwood</i>'s Core: A New Approach to Restrictions on School-Sponsored Speech

This Article begins by discussing the Hazelwood decision in depth. It then discusses the various contexts in which courts have applied Hazelwood and the circuit split that has developed over how broadly Hazelwood should reach. Next, it describes the circuit split over whether Hazelwood permits viewpoint-based speech restrictions, highlighting the different speech contexts in which the circuits have reached divergent conclusions. The Article then argues that the overextension of Hazelwood links the two splits.

This Part also discusses why Hazelwood is uniquely suited to the student speech context and why other doctrines—namely, the Pickering–Connick framework for teachers’ classroom speech and basic public forum analysis for outside entities’ speech—are better suited to analyze school-speech restrictions of nonstudents. To support this position, this Article draws upon the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos. Finally, having returned to Hazelwood’s core as a doctrine governing student speech, the Article proposes a sliding-scale approach that courts should use to evaluate viewpoint-based restrictions on student speech.