Getting educated is each student's everyday school routine unless they attend Wormwood West College, especially the Multimedia I class. They have already learned about the liberty of expression as it provided by Constitution, while it does not apply to the other students that publish the school bulletin. They were suspended after the headmaster had imposed censorship on two articles and demanded that they were deleted from the paper. He claimed the right for the school authorities to restrict the students' freedom of expression with respect to the actions that are a common practice in the school's educational function. The first questioned article concerned an anonymous Wormwood students' pregnancy story, while another one was a presentation of the influence of divorce experience upon the students. Neither the first nor the second article was a public menace to students' morals or their educational rights, so the decision had nothing to do with the enforcement, but rather with the infringement of the Multimedia I course's "educational function." So, the judiciary verdict both deprives the students of the First Amendment liberties and weakens the cognitive value of press, not to mention the censorship imposed upon the advisory materials which considerably handicaps their availability.
According to the Higher Court of Law, the school authorities deny the students' liberties stated by the Constitution Amendment, which reads: "Congress shall never make a law...prohibiting the free exercise...abridging the press autonomy...." Besides, neither the first nor the second article upset schoolwork or violated the others' freedom, which makes the grounds for school officials' extraordinary publisher's privilege "to inflict limits to students' communication actions that are...a part of school." Consequently, the students were not unsettling the "educational function" of the college, but were using their journalist abilities to inform of "bad news." Informing of bad news is not less significant than the coverage of the good. Restricting reporting to only positive information not only limits student's legitimate civil liberties, but limits the principles of education. Therefore, the Higher Court's confirmation of college prejudice to "student expression that is contradictory to its fundamental didactic assignment, and that Multimedia I is a workroom condition wherein undergraduates use abilities they managed to learn," is not only conflicting but also undemocratic. In summary, this kind of suppression does not advance the syllabus principles of a scholar tabloid.
The journalism apprentices were prohibited from gaining complete information that could have helped them improve their social study. The Wormwood scholars could have achieved much positive experience from discussing the questions of teens' pregnancy or students' divorce and its consequences. Facing the others' experience would help develop understanding, tolerance and sound judgment whether to follow their example or not. This would contribute to the students' awareness of procreation responsibility, including far-reaching effects upon the children of single parents. The free discussion would have improved both the emotional and social education concerning the students' marital problems. The legal verdict undermines the main sociological aspect of the journalist training, i.e. the "basic didactic assignment of the Multimedia I course," and the educational objective - which is to gain both social and professional skills. The whole community of Wormwood students was deprived of their information freedom, which impairs the perception of crucial school life aspects and the development of personal judgment. Needless to say, nothing evokes empathy and reflection better than a thorough study of the others' personal experience.
The young writers were denied freedom to express their views, although the deleted articles did not disturb the schoolwork and did not offend the others' liberties, either. In the same way, the scholars were secluded from the school's complete educational opportunity, which includes, in its first and main aspect, both the reliable information irrespectively of its character and, last but not least, the absence of censorship.
