On Principles of Students' Rights

1970 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia

Background NCTE members' concern for helping secondary school students learn to function as citizens in a democracy prompted them to pass a resolution calling for these students to be given "every opportunity to participate in the school and in the community with rights broadly analogous to those of adult students." The members acknowledged that high-school age students need more supervision than college students. But they underscored faculty responsibility to encourage freedom of expression while helping students develop "a sense of responsibility and good citizenship." Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English accept the following principles regarding students' rights: Freedom implies the right to make mistakes and thus students must at times be permitted to act in ways which are unwise from an adult point of view so long as the consequences of their acts are not dangerous to life and property, and do not seriously disrupt the academic process. Students in their schools should have the right to live under the principle of "rule by law" as opposed to "rule by personality," and, to protect this right, rules and regulations should be assented to by those who would be bound by them and should be in writing. (Students have the right to know the extent and limits of the faculty's authority and, therefore, the powers that are reserved for the students and the responsibilities that they should accept. Their rights should not be compromised by faculty members who while ostensibly acting as consultants or counselors are, in fact, exercising authority to censor student expression and inquiry.) Deviation from the opinions and standards deemed desirable by the faculty is not ipso facto a danger to the educational process.