The Student Press Law Center provides education and legal assistance to high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment, as well as free legal advice and low-cost educational materials for student journalists on a wide variety of topics.

The ACLU believes that all campuses should adhere to First Amendment principles because academic freedom is a bedrock of education in a free society. Many universities have adopted codes or policies prohibiting speech that offends any group based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The ACLU's stand is that this is the wrong response, well-meaning or not. "The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Speech codes adopted by government-financed state colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution." The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

The U.S. Supreme Court tells us in Tinker vs. Des Moines that students do not "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door." In Tinker vs. Des Moines, the Court found that the First Amendment protected the right of high school students to wear black armbands in a public high school as a form of protest against the Viet Nam War. The Court ruled that this symbolic speech--"closely akin to pure speech"--could only be prohibited by school administrators if they could show that it would cause a substantial disruption of the school's educational mission. Student speech cases require a balancing of the legitimate educational objectives and the need for school discipline of administrators against the First Amendment values served by extending speech rights of students.