Opinion: I am a student and activist. I won’t be silenced

Editor’s Note: Pratika Katiyar is a GenZ free expression activist. She is a student at Northeastern University and a board member for the Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit that defends students’ press freedom rights. She has been profiled in Teen Vogue, NBC Washington, and ABC for her activism and has spoken on panels for the United Nations, PEN America, and Georgetown Law School. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

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“America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy,” the Supreme Court wrote in the 2021 Mahanoy v. B.L. opinion, a case involving student free speech off-campus and on social media.

That’s a beautiful sentiment for a country that sees itself as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. If only it could be true.

Freedom of expression is under threat in schools across the US. Students who were already fighting for the right to express themselves freely and fairly in student publications, without interference from administrators, now face an additional obstacle: A slew of new, oppressive state laws aimed at controlling what students can learn about and discuss in the classroom.

GenZ activists, like me, who have been advocating for states to pass New Voices legislation codifying student free speech protections for school news outlets are alarmed. Only 16 states currently have legislation that protects student journalists’ First Amendment rights.

How will the nation’s schools produce the next generation of voices committed to facts and truth while under the constant threat of censorship? It is up to GenZ to demand that our schools remain the place where we can learn to exercise our constitutional right to free speech. And we won’t stay quiet.

GenZ has already proven that we are capable of driving change. After all, our generation’s activists and organizers influenced the 2022 midterm elections in large numbers, and this generation of student journalists are making a crucial difference, too.

At a time when an average of two newspapers disappear every week nationally, according to The Local News Initiative at Northwestern University, student journalists are helping sustain local media in so-called “news deserts” across the US. Amid a global pandemic, a climate crisis, and an upending of reproductive rights, this is no time to be putting the brakes on students’ ability to truthfully report the news to their peers and to the larger community.

A 2022 Pew Research Center report found that college student journalists make up large chunks of the press corps in state capitols, comprising almost half of the reporters covering statehouses in states like Missouri, and a quarter in my home state of Virginia. They do this in a variety of ways, including working for university-run news outlets whose work is picked up locally, or as interns at news organizations.

Key contributions of student journalists can happen even at the high school level. For example, the county in Virginia where I grew up has over one million residents but only one newspaper. As former Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper, the staff and I prioritized reaching audiences beyond just students in our campus community. I pored over newsmagazine spreads covering stories ranging from Virginia’s state elections to Covid-19 vaccine distribution to better direct our own coverage.

In Nebraska, school administrators shut down a high school paper that published articles on LGBTQ issues, including an op-ed on the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. In Arkansas, a yearbook spread gained national attention after school officials physically removed pages that included coverage of the murder of George Floyd, among other political and social issues. These kinds of censorship incidents are not rare and isolated, they’re examples of the strong chilling effect that a lack of legal protections creates on student speech.

Rather than feeling empowered, students have a good reason to be more scared than ever of having their voices silenced.

Already, in most states, students do not have the basic, constitutional right to a free press as a result of the 1988 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Supreme Court ruling, which gave schools the authority to censor student voices for reasons “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” This vague – and easily abused – stipulation helped prompt the advocates’ push for New Voices laws and is fueling the pushback against educational “gag” orders.

There’s hope. In grassroots organizing work, small steps matter. By showing up to school board meetings or advocating for stories to be published against the fear of censorship, students can challenge misconceptions about student journalism and change the status quo.

Educators and professional journalists can also act as allies, pouring efforts into persuading lawmakers to enact legislation to restore First Amendment protections for students and encouraging student journalists to pursue stories.

As someone who is often the youngest person in the room, whether it is the boardroom or breakout room, I know that youth voices are easily discounted. But it is important to remember that we hold the collective power to demand better. GenZ is the present and future of journalism, and that is why we continue fighting for our rights.