JEA hosted this year’s Scholastic Journalism Week Student Poster Contest Aug. 11-Sept. 15, 2025. Students submitted poster designs inspired by this year’s theme, Press Under Pressure. The SJW committee selected three finalists and JEA members voted for the winner. The winning design design by Theo Slade. was featured on a commemorative poster promoting #SJW2026 that was sent out to JEA members in November with the winter issue of C:JET magazine.

By Candace Bowen, MJE

The theme for JEA’s Scholastic Journalism Week Feb. 23 – 27, 2026 is “Press Under Pressure.” How does student media react when those with more power – administrators and even community members – apply pressure to restrict and control what students feel is important to publish? The fourth day of the week is SPLC’s Student Press Freedom Day: “Resilience in Action.” But what exactly does it mean to be “resilient”?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

re·sil·ient
/rəˈzilēənt/

adjective
1. (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

Sounds like a lot of student journalists who have come under pressure, doesn’t it? Some of them have names we know: Cathy Kuhlmeier, whose student newspaper was censored in 1988 for writing about topics that concerned fellow students at Hazelwood East (Missouri): teen mothers and how they can cope and divorce in the family.

And, although they lost the case at the Supreme Court level, the decision revealed a loophole: If such publications are designated forums for student expression, then students do have more First Amendment rights at their school. Kuhlmeier now shares her story and the value of First Amendment rights with today’s student journalists.

Other names may not be quite as familiar. Katy Dean of Utica High School in Michigan had the principal pull an article she wrote about diesel emissions from school buses while they were warming up on cold winter days and the potential harm to neighbors who lived near the bus garage. Although he said the information was “highly inaccurate” and based on “unreliable sources,” the judge decided for Katy and said the school censored the article out of self-interest. Another resilient student journalist.

Each year since 1984 the Student Press Law Center has presented the Courage in Student Journalism Award to those who have “demonstrated exceptional determination and support for student press freedom, despite resistance of difficult circumstances.” National Scholastic Press Association now also sponsors the award.

• 2025: Editor John Libresco and staff of Theogony at Alexandria City High School for standing up to a district that wanted to institute prior review over their publication and essentially make the principal the editor after Libresco’s staff began writing investigative pieces about controversial administrator decisions and how they impacted the school.
• 2024: Editor-in-chief Hanna Olson and reporters Renuka Mungee, Myesha Phukan and Hayes Duenow, of Mountain View High School (California), investigated several sexual harassment incidents at the high school. The principal insisted much had to be be cut from their article and later eliminated the school’s beginning journalism class and removed the publication adviser. Two of the students and the former adviser then filed a lawsuit against the district and principal.
• 2023: Two awards went to schools in 2023. The Pearl Post and reporters Valeria Luquin, Nathalie Miranda, Delilah Brumer and Gabielle Lashley and adviser Adriana Chavira faced tough threats from administrators when they refused the librarian’s demand to remove information about her not returning to work after the school-issued mask mandate went into effect during COVID. When the students refused, administrators demanded Chavira change the copy, but she, too, refused, even when facing the possibility of losing her job. Although California’s Education Code has Section 48907 that prohibits such censoring, the administrators didn’t budge – nor did the students and adviser. Eventually the disciplinary threat was removed. and the students printed the story in September 2022. The other award in 2023 went to Marcus Pennell of the Viking Saga, Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska. Administrators insisted the newspaper staff print only students’ legal names in bylines and articles. Pennell, a transgender male, would then be deadnamed in all his bylines, and other transgender students would not be able to use their preferred names. The staff’s reaction was to publish three Pride-related articles in the last issue of the year, which caused the administration to shut down the publication and cancel the journalism class. The adviser resigned.

In an era when even the Washington Post and New York Times have been targeted and faced lawsuits from the person in power, it’s not surprising student journalists and their advisers have had to be strong when facing pressure from administrators and had to show just how resilient they can be, both those who receive awards and those who are just quietly and persistently trying to keep providing information important to their readers.