When I became a journalist, I gave up my right to demonstrate or protest or engage in advocacy, save for one area: press freedom.

So imagine my shock and horror to find that Montgomery County Public Schools, the institution where I learned to love journalism, has violated this sacred principle in brazen — and seemingly unlawful — ways.

MCPS officials issued a memorandum in May requiring prior review of all student journalistic content, regardless of subject or content.

The memo includes restrictions on content involving “embarrassing or private moments,” “ridicule of individuals or groups,” and “sarcasm or teasing that could be interpreted as bullying.”

A not-unreasonable reading of the policy would block publication of accountability journalism and satire, two of the bedrocks of Americans’ freedom of expression and of the press.

Maryland legislators and Gov. Larry Hogan in 2016 recognized that prior review of student journalism was incompatible with educating young leaders and informed citizens. Hogan signed “New Voices” legislation into law that year to prohibit prior restraint in almost every situation.

Under the statute, school officials can only restrain speech concerning libel or slander, unwarranted invasions of privacy, and content that would create a clear and present danger or significantly disrupt school activities.

MCPS’s policy appears to directly conflict with that law, something not lost on the county’s student journalists.

“We want this to be clear,” wrote dozens of student journalists and faculty advisers (including from my alma mater, Sherwood High School) in an open letter to county leaders. “Any prior review and restraint policy that does not explicitly confine itself to the categories the New Voices Act identifies as legally restrainable is inconsistent with the law and undermines student journalism.”

A county schools spokesperson told Bethesda Magazine (where I interned in the summer of 2014) that “nothing in the memorandum interferes with student journalism or imposes prior restraint.”

A few things about that:

First, it’s simply false. The entire memo interferes with student journalism, full stop. If student journalists say it interferes with their work, the county ought to believe them. If advisers say it interferes with journalists’ work, the county ought to believe them. And if professional journalists (that’s me 👋) say it interferes with journalistic work, the county ought to believe us, too.

Second, mandatory prior review, or simply vetting journalistic content pre-publication, in and of itself appears to violate Maryland’s student press protections. And the county’s attempt to move the goalposts on the effect of its own policy has not gone unnoticed.

Third, and most importantly: prior review is, in effect, prior restraint, or the prohibition of publishing certain content.

Prior review inevitably chills speech. That is especially so in the case of student journalists: Imagine a 16 year-old trying to hold officials accountable knowing that their work will be reviewed by those very individuals before it is published.

A framework of unavoidable review creates an environment, wittingly or not, in which administrators will exercise total control over the press inside their schools.

Student journalists are journalists. If this kind of environment is intolerable at the White House or Pentagon or Congress, it is just as unacceptable in a schoolhouse.

There is much more I could say about this policy, about the way MCPS ought to engage with student journalists and journalism educators. But, of course, as a professional journalist, I can’t do that. I can’t appear to put my thumb on the scale advocating for a specific policy or position.

These students are training for and practicing that same kind of work. I’ve got their back.

As always, get in touch with me with news tips, questions or just to say hi: [email protected] or securely on Signal: jacobbogage.87. Follow me on Bluesky (jacobbogage.bsky.social) and on LinkedIn.