State Law

CHSPA work­ing to pro­tect advis­ers from retal­i­a­tion
The CHSPA Board is work­ing to amend the 1990 Col­orado Stu­dent Free Expres­sion Law by adding a sec­tion mod­eled on Cal­i­for­nia Edu­ca­tion Code Sec­tion 48907.

It reads: An employee shall not be dis­missed, sus­pended, dis­ci­plined, reas­signed, trans­ferred, or oth­er­wise retal­i­ated against solely for act­ing to pro­tect a pupil engaged in the con­duct autho­rized under this sec­tion, or refus­ing to infringe upon con­duct that is pro­tected by this sec­tion, or the First Amend­ment to the United States Constitution.

CHSPA is work­ing with the state leg­is­la­ture, as well as var­i­ous pro­fes­sional jour­nal­ism orga­ni­za­tions and uni­ver­si­ties, to include this in the 2013 leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Stay tuned!

Col­orado Stu­dent Free Expres­sion Law

(Cite as: Colo. Rev. Stat. 22–1-120)
Sec­tion 22–1-120 — Rights of free expres­sion for pub­lic school students

Became law in June of 1990

(1) The gen­eral assem­bly declares that stu­dents of the pub­lic schools shall have the right to exer­cise free­dom of speech and of the press, and no expres­sion con­tained in a stu­dent pub­li­ca­tion, whether or not such pub­li­ca­tion is school-sponsored, shall be sub­ject to prior restraint except for the types of expres­sion described in sub­sec­tion (3) of this sec­tion. This sec­tion shall not pre­vent the advi­sor from encour­ag­ing expres­sion which is con­sis­tent with high stan­dards of Eng­lish and journalism.

(2) If a pub­li­ca­tion writ­ten sub­stan­tially by stu­dents is made gen­er­ally avail­able through­out a pub­lic school, it shall be a pub­lic forum for stu­dents of such school.

(3) Noth­ing in this sec­tion shall be inter­preted to autho­rize the pub­li­ca­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion by stu­dents of the fol­low­ing:
(a) Expres­sion which is obscene;
(b) Expres­sion which is libelous, slan­der­ous, or defam­a­tory under state law;
© Expres­sion which is false as to any per­son who is not a pub­lic fig­ure or involved in a mat­ter of pub­lic con­cern;
(d) Expres­sion which cre­ates a clear and present dan­ger of the com­mis­sion of unlaw­ful acts, the vio­la­tion of law­ful school reg­u­la­tions, or the mate­r­ial and sub­stan­tial dis­rup­tion of the orderly oper­a­tion of the school or which vio­lates the rights of oth­ers to privacy.

(4) The board of edu­ca­tion of each school dis­trict shall adopt a writ­ten pub­li­ca­tions code, which shall be con­sis­tent with the terms of this sec­tion and shall include rea­son­able pro­vi­sions for the time, place, and man­ner of con­duct­ing free expres­sion within the school district’s juris­dic­tion. Said pub­li­ca­tions code shall be dis­trib­uted, posted, or oth­er­wise made avail­able to all stu­dents and teach­ers at the begin­ning of the 1991–92 school year and at the begin­ning of each school year thereafter.

(5) (a) Stu­dent edi­tors of school spon­sored stu­dent pub­li­ca­tions shall be respon­si­ble for deter­min­ing the news, opin­ion, and adver­tis­ing con­tent of their pub­li­ca­tions sub­ject to the lim­i­ta­tions of this sec­tion. It shall be the respon­si­bil­ity of the pub­li­ca­tions advi­sor of school-sponsored stu­dent pub­li­ca­tions within each school to super­vise the pro­duc­tion of such pub­li­ca­tions and to teach and encour­age free and respon­si­ble expres­sion and pro­fes­sional stan­dards for Eng­lish and jour­nal­ism.
(b) For the pur­poses of this sec­tion, “pub­li­ca­tions advi­sor” means a per­son whose duties include the super­vi­sion of school-sponsored stu­dent publications.

(6) If par­tic­i­pa­tion in a school-sponsored pub­li­ca­tion is part of a school class or activ­ity for which grades or school cred­its are given, the pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion shall not be inter­preted to inter­fere with the author­ity of the pub­li­ca­tions advi­sor for such school-sponsored pub­li­ca­tions to estab­lish or limit writ­ing assign­ments for the stu­dents work­ing with the pub­li­ca­tion and to oth­er­wise direct and con­trol the learn­ing expe­ri­ence that the pub­li­ca­tion is intended to provide.

(7) No expres­sion made by stu­dents in the exer­cise of free­dom of speech or free­dom of the press shall be deemed to be an expres­sion of school pol­icy, and no school dis­trict employee, or par­ent, or legal guardian, or offi­cial of such school dis­trict shall be held liable in any civil or crim­i­nal action for any expres­sion made or pub­lished by students.

(8) Noth­ing in this sec­tion shall be con­strued to limit the pro­mul­ga­tion or enforce­ment of unlaw­ful school reg­u­la­tions designed to con­trol gangs. For this pur­pose of this sec­tion, the def­i­n­i­tion of “gang” shall be the def­i­n­i­tion found in sec­tion 19–2-1111(2)(d)(II), C.R.S.