A bill proposed in the state legislature this week could make Washington the first state to extend full free-press protections to both high school and college-level student publications.

Unveiled with very little fanfare and publicity Tuesday, the bill proposed by Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, would grant student journalists full First Amendment rights and release school officials from liability associated with articles published by student newspapers.

If approved by the legislature, the bill would make Washington the seventh state to extend freedom of the press to high school students and the only state other than California to extend constitutionally guaranteed free-press rights to college publications.

"People don't lose their First Amendment rights just because they're young," Upthegrove said. "It is important to teach the next generation the importance of exercising their constitutional rights."

Upthegrove decided to support the Student Free Press bill after he was approached last summer by Brian Schraum, former editor-in-chief of Green River Community College's student newspaper The Current.

Upthegrove said Schraum was concerned the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear an appeal in the case Hosty v. Carter — a case that restricted student free-press rights — might affect The Current's publication.

"It's an issue that doesn't have anything to do with age or level of education," Schraum said. "It's about constitutional rights. Students are people and people have rights that are protected in this country."

The high court's refusal to hear an appeal by Governors State University's student newspaper editors, Margaret Hosty and Jeni Porche, reaffirmed a controversial Illinois court ruling allowing school administrators to censor student publications.

"Even though that case is not binding on our area, I thought I should at least see if there was anything I could do at my school to guarantee student autonomy," said Schraum.

Though Green River Community College administrators were initially open to creating a policy preventing administrative interference, Schraum said school officials backed out after consulting their lawyers.

"After [Hosty v. Carter], school officials across the country were treating this thing as a mandate," said Mike Hiestand, an attorney for the Student Press Law Center, a student free-press advocacy group. "[Administrators] were anticipating that Hosty would set a new standard in how the courts would treat administrative censorship of student publications."

Hiestand referred to a memo circulated to all university presidents in the California State University system as an example. Hiestand said the memo, circulated by a CSU attorney, read, "We have more authority because of the Hosty ruling."

Upthegrove said his championing of the Student Free Press bill was a measure intended to prevent the same sort of actions from taking place in Washington state schools.

"I want to end school officials' muzzling of students simply because they don't like what [the students] say," said Upthegrove.

Don Pember, professor emeritus of communication at the UW, cited a free student press as one of the most important constitutional issues facing the US.

Pember listed a growing number of high school newspaper censorship cases in Washington state, as well as a few instances of collegiate-level censorship on the East Coast and in the Midwest as concerns.

"I think people learn best by doing," he said. "This is a concern because as students get used to the idea of censorship in an environment like high school, they develop the idea that censorship is acceptable and, in turn, accept [censorship] at a governmental level."

In a 2006 Knight Foundation study, nearly half the high school-aged students surveyed agreed that "it is OK for the government to censor news," a statistic that has Upthegrove concerned.

"Educators are teaching students a bad lesson," Upthegrove said. "Criticisms of my bill by administrators don't hold any water. This bill both protects students by allowing intervention in cases of libel, obscenity and school disruption, but also shifts liability away from the schools themselves."

Officials at the Washington State School Administrators Association and the Washington State School Directors Association were not available for comment.

"Being opposed to a bill like this is like being against apple pie and motherhood," Hiestand said. "It's hard to find people to come out and say they don't support free press."

Reach reporter Brian Slodysko at news@thedaily.washington.edu.