America's Leading Journalism, Free-Speech Groups Urge Student-Rights Focus for World Press Freedom Day 2011

The Student Press Law Center ("SPLC") and 38 of the nation's leading journalism and free-speech organizations joined forces today to call upon the Obama administration to use the May 3 celebration of World Press Freedom Day in Washington, D.C., to assert a global leadership role in liberating student journalists from censorship.

The organizations sent a joint letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton today - published in a half-page advertisement in today's The Washington Post - that urges the administration to make the First Amendment rights of student journalists a priority in order to maintain the United States' credibility as a beacon of free expression rights.

"American's most vulnerable journalists need those who have spoken out so persuasively against censorship abroad to speak with that same forcefulness at home," the joint letter states. "We urge your administration to publicly acknowledge the unfinished work of press freedom in our own nation, to denounce the shameful practice of stifling candid discussion of school issues, and to ensure that this World Press Freedom Day concludes with a global commitment to protect the rights of all journalists, even the youngest."

Attorney Frank D. LoMonte, Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center, said, "Young people are consistently at the forefront of social and political change, in this country and around the world. The obstruction of students' ability to meaningfully participate in discussing matters of public concern is a fundamental civil-rights issue. It's it is time that our country recognized censorship as a cancerous educational practice and committed to eradicating it."

The SPLC's attorney hotline fields approximately 800 censorship complaints from college and high school journalists nationwide each year, including the recent case of two high-school students in Aurora, Colo., whose principal ordered their newspaper shut down and their faculty adviser removed in retaliation for the students' truthful reporting on a student death that the school sought to downplay. The sanctions were reversed under the glare of media scrutiny and the threat of a First Amendment lawsuit.

World Press Freedom Day was designated in 1993 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to bring together the nation's leading authorities on press freedom to discuss the state of free expression globally and to agree on guiding principles for reform. World Press Freedom Day traditionally ends with the adoption of a declaration of shared principles, and the 37 signers of the open letter encouraged the delegates to World Press Freedom Day 2011 to remember student rights as they formulate the Washington Declaration.

An Open Letter to President Obama About World Press Freedom Day

In addition to the SPLC, those signing the open letter include:

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
American Copy Editors Society
American Society of Journalists and Authors, First Amendment Committee
Asian American Journalists Association
Broadcast Education Association
Center for Scholastic Journalism, Kent State University College Media Advisers, Inc.
The First Amendment Project
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. Illinois College Press Association
Illinois Community College Journalism Association
Inter American Press Association
Investigative News Network
IRE, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Inc.
Journalism Education Association
Mid-America Press Institute
National Association of Black Journalists
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
National Association of Science Writers, Inc.
National Coalition Against Censorship
National Federation of Press Women
National Press Photographers Association
National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association
National Newspaper Association
National Press Foundation
National Scholastic Press Association
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
National Youth Rights Association
The Poynter Institute
Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists
Religion Newswriters Association
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Society of American Business Editors & Writers
Society of Collegiate Journalists
Society of Environmental Journalists
Society of Professional Journalists
Society for Features Journalism
Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University