For most, decisions made about First Amendment rights of collegiate media are little more than trivial happenings.
But a recent case in Illinois – regarding a university newspaper’s right to freedom of expression without interference from school administrators – is garnering national coverage because of its potential implications on the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to hear an appeal by three students from Governors State University in Illinois. Jeni Porche, Margaret Hosty and Steven Barba, student journalists for The Innovator, brought a lawsuit against school administrators who, they said, attempted to censor by prior review the content of the paper.
In 2000, The Innovator published some stories critical of the school’s administration. Patricia Carter, dean of student affairs at Governors, placed a call to the company that printed the newspaper and ordered it not to print any copies of the paper without first getting approval from a school administrator.
At first glance it seems the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal court with appellate jurisdiction over Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, condones this type of unconstitutional censorship.
The 11-judge court ruled June 20, 2005, that the Supreme Court’s 1988 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision limiting high school students’ free expression rights could extend to college and university campuses. What this does is grant university administrators, at least at schools in the three states in which the decision is applicable, the means to censor student-run media with a federal court decision to use as precedent in their defense.
The 7th Court’s ruling stands in stark contrast to other federal and district court decisions that say the First Amendment rights granting freedom of the press apply to collegiate media.
The Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to not hear the appeal is seen as a setback by many advocates for free student press.
Although the 7th Court’s ruling infringes upon student journalists’ right to editorial discretion without prior review from school administrators, the legal aspects of the case actually favor Carter and Governors State.
According to the Student Press Law Center, an advocacy group for student free-press rights, the federal court was able to make its decision without actually defining to what First Amendment rights college journalists are entitled. The seven-judge majority made their decision based on two legal details that actually have a leg to stand on.
Without defining what First Amendment rights college newspapers are entitled to, the court said a court confronted with an act of student newspaper censorship by a college official must first determine if the publication was a “designated public forum” where students had been given the authority to make the content decisions. Although there was a university policy that said The Innovator staff “will determine content and format of their respective publications without censorship or advance approval,” the court ruled that The Innovator had not necessarily been defined as such.
The court also held that even assuming that The Innovator was a public forum, the dean who censored the publication was entitled to qualified immunity from damages for infringing on the students’ rights because she could not have reasonably known that the limitations of the Hazelwood decision did not apply to college and university student publications, according to the Student Free Press coverage of the case.
The issue of a university newspapers having the same right to free press as major newspapers is something the Supreme Court should eventually address, but because of the legal obscurity of this particular case, I’m glad the high court passed on Hosty v. Carter.
Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said the focus on qualitative immunity from monetary damages and the fact that this case was more procedural than constitutional makes it not the best case to present to the Supreme Court for decision on a free-press issue.
I hope when the Court does decide to hear a case on this matter the case provides incontrovertible doctrine that will ultimately secure collegiate press from prior restraint or any other form of censorship.
LSU has a dutiful history of letting student media editors solely decide the content they produce. But given the ramifications of Hosty v. Carter, I think administrators here should take the initiative to ensure student media’s continued independence by signing a document that recognizes and affirms the editorial independence and press freedom of all student-edited University media.
Unless the school favors drawn-out, ambiguous legal proceedings.
 
Dennis is a theatre senior. Contact him
at [email protected]