MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Over 150 students and staff from all 25 high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, called for school leaders to withdraw a March memo. Dr. Peter Moran, chief of schools for the Montgomery County school district, circulated the March 19 memo that requires all schools to designate an administrator to review every student publication and school-related printed material prior to publication.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) leadership described issues addressed by the letter as "misperceptions." MCPS Public Information Officer Liliana Lopez stated, "Nothing in the memorandum interferes with student journalism or imposes prior restraint." Superintendent of Schools Thomas Taylor also responded to a change.org protest forum, writing, "Nothing in the memorandum interferes with student journalism or imposes prior restraint." Taylor added, "I can emphatically tell you that no one wants to censor the kids," and noted, "However, the kids are learning (that's what they are here for) and we would like to avoid some lawsuits and liability when possible."

The Student Press Law Center stated the memo appears to "impose broad prior review without clear standards, timelines, appeal rights, or safeguards required to protect student journalists under Maryland law." The open letter from students and staff states the memo uses vague language to describe content administrators are instructed to censor, including "embarrassing or private moments," "ridicule of individuals or groups," and "sarcasm or teasing that could be interpreted as bullying." The letter states: "A student using his opinion column to harass and spread unfounded gossip about the class president is very different from a student writing a sharp critique of a speech given by a Board of Education member — yet both could be considered 'ridicule of individuals or groups.'" The letter also states: "The act explicitly states that the school system does not have editorial control over a publication just because the publication is produced as part of a class or supported financially by the school."

Maryland's "New Voices Act," signed in 2016 by then-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, grants students the right to determine the content of school-sponsored media and exercise freedom of speech and press. Maryland law allows schools to restrain student journalism if the content is libelous or slanderous, constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, violates federal or state law, or incites students to create a clear and present danger of the commission of an unlawful act, violate county school board policies, or create a material or substantial disruption of the orderly operation of a school.

Lopez stated the memorandum was issued to "remind school administrators of their responsibility to supervise students and student publications in alignment with the MCPS' Student Rights and Responsibilities." She wrote, "For example, we have had instances at schools where inappropriate content was printed, but not reviewed first, in school yearbooks and other publications, resulting in substantial disruption to school operations and community hurt." Lopez added, "Careful prior review could have prevented hurtful impacts to the school community in these instances."

Ian Chen, an editor for Richard Montgomery High School's "The Tide," organized the open letter campaign. Chen said his first thought upon hearing about the memo was "this is wrong." He stated, "The very purpose of employing a journalism teacher at every single high school, spending all that money is so there's someone out there to be teaching us in the classroom." Chen asked, "Why should we have someone uninformed, someone who's already really, really busy? Why should we have a single administrator be reading thousands of words of content a day, reviewing it before it's published, when we're covering the very administrators themselves?" Chen concluded, "It just doesn't make any sense to me."