Some of the most painful incidents arise not from what one student says, but from what the school itself publishes. A page in the yearbook celebrates or justifies the October 7 massacre. The school newspaper runs a one-sided article that denigrates Israel or Jewish students. An official display presents the conflict from a single perspective. When parents complain, administrators often respond that their hands are tied: it is student speech, they say, and free speech protects it.
This gets the law backwards — and it is the reason this situation deserves its own chapter, separate from a student's personal speech. The remedy here is different. When the offending content appears in an official school publication, you are not asking the school to punish a student. You are asking the school to stop lending its own name and resources to the content. The school has far more power to do that than it has to discipline a student's private expression, and a different line of Supreme Court authority controls.
A School Publication Is the School's Speech
A yearbook is not a student's private speech. It is a school-sponsored publication — the school produces it, funds it, edits it, and prints its name on it. The same is true of the official school newspaper, official social media accounts, and curated displays. The Supreme Court has squarely held that schools have greater control over school-sponsored speech than over a student's personal expression, not less.
What Counts as a School Publication?
The yearbook and the official school newspaper are the clearest examples, but the category is broader. A simple rule of thumb: if it carries the school's name, is funded or supervised by the school, or a reasonable person would look at it and see the school speaking rather than a lone student, it is a school-sponsored publication. That includes official social media accounts, school-curated displays and bulletin boards, programs handed out at school events, and the like. By contrast, a flyer a student hands out on her own, or a post from her personal account, is the student's own speech, governed by the rules in the previous chapter. When something carries the school's imprimatur, the school is the publisher — and the publisher decides what it will and will not print.
Case Study: Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988)
In Hazelwood, a high school principal removed two articles from the student newspaper before publication. The students sued, arguing their First Amendment rights were violated. The Supreme Court disagreed and held for the school. The Court drew a clear line between two different questions:
- When may a school punish a student's personal expression that happens to occur on campus? That question is governed by Tinker — the school needs to show disruption or invasion of others' rights.
- When may a school refuse to lend its name and resources to student expression in a school-sponsored publication? That is a different and easier question. The Court held that "educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." Id. at 273.
The Same Words, a Different Rule
The power a school has over its yearbook is greater than the power it has over a student's shirt. Suppose a student writes, "Israel is a genocidal colonial regime." On that student's own social media account, or on a button she wears in the hallway, that statement is very likely protected speech the school cannot punish — the rules for a student's personal expression, explained in the previous chapter, protect a great deal of antizionist opinion. Put the identical sentence in the school yearbook, however, and a different rule applies. The school is now the publisher. Under Hazelwood, it may decline to print the sentence for any legitimate educational reason, without showing any disruption at all. The venue changed; so did the school's power.
It can feel like censorship to keep something out of the students' yearbook. But the yearbook was never purely the students' speech to begin with — it has always been the school's own publication, produced under the school's name. That is why the "we can't touch it, it's free speech" excuse fails. Hazelwood does not force the school to remove the content, but it gives the school every right to. An administrator who leaves antizionist content in the yearbook is not powerless; he is choosing not to use a power the Supreme Court has squarely confirmed he has.
Why the School May Legally Decline to Publish Antizionist Speech
Putting the two ideas together: under Hazelwood, the school may keep antizionist content out of its own publications, for any legitimate educational reason and without proving any disruption. It has the power. The "free speech" objection does not take that power away, because the school is exercising editorial control over its own speech, not punishing a student for hers.
That answers what the school may do. But there is a second, stronger point: in many cases the school is not merely permitted to act — it is required to. When antizionist content in an official publication targets or denigrates Jewish students, it can contribute to a hostile environment. A yearbook distributed to the entire school that a reasonable Jewish student experiences as celebrating or minimizing the murder of Jews is not neutral political commentary; it is part of a hostile environment that federal and California law obligate the school to address. So the school's discretion under Hazelwood — its power to decline — hardens into a duty under Title VI and California's education statutes. The school may decline to publish the content; and where it creates a hostile environment, it must.
The Test Is Consistency
The clearest proof that the "free speech" excuse is a pretext is consistency. Schools that invoke free speech to avoid acting on antizionist yearbook content have, in other instances, quickly recalled yearbooks or removed content they concluded was racist or harmful to other groups — acknowledging the harm, communicating with families, and pursuing corrective measures. A school that acts decisively when the target is one group but hides behind "free speech" when the target is Jewish students is not applying a neutral rule. That selective enforcement is itself a form of discrimination.
What families should take from this: If antisemitic or antizionist content appears in a yearbook, school newspaper, or official display, do not accept "it's student free speech" as the final word. The school is the publisher of its own publications and has the authority — and the obligation — to exercise editorial control. Ask the school in writing to remove the content, recall or correct the publication, and apply the same standard it has applied when other groups were targeted.