- Students at hazelwood east high school wrote articles in the school newspaper about teen pregnancy, and the impact of divorce.
- When the articles were published in a school sponsored newspaper, the principal deleted the pages that contained the stories prior to publication without telling the students.
- The students took their case to a District Court in St. Louis, and the trial court ruled that the school had the authority to remove those articles.
- The students then appealed the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and it reversed the lower court, and found that the paper was a "public forum", and that school officials could only censor content under extreme circumstances.
- In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the principal's actions did not volate the students' free speech. The Court noted that the paper was sponsored by the school, and that it had legitimate interest in preventing the publication of articles it deemed inappropriate. They ruled that the school paper was not a public forum, it was a limited forum that served as a learning exercise for journalism students.
