A recent 7th District Federal Court of Appeals decision has a lot of us in the world of student newspapers scratching our heads. As reported by the First Amendment Center, Student Press Law Center, Society of Professional Journalists and a host of other watchdog groups, the courts have held that a public university can censor a student publication much in the same way a high school newspaper can be censored.
The case, Hosty v. Carter (formerly Hosty v. Governors State University), involved a demand by the dean of student affairs at Governors State University in University Park, Ill., for pre-publication review of the newspaper, the Innovator.
The controversy arose after Dean Patricia Carter sought to prevent publication of the Innovator unless it had obtained prior approval of university officials. Two former student editors, Margaret Hosty and Jeni Porche, and a former writer, Steven P. Barba, filed a federal lawsuit, contending that Carter, the state-run school and other officials violated their free-expression rights in that their demand for prior review amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint on expression.
Carter argued that she could censor the college newspaper under the rationale of the 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, in which the Court said high school newspapers could be subject to restrictions.
The majority in yesterday's 7-4 ruling by the 7th Circuit reversed a 2003 ruling by a three-judge panel of the same court and dismissed the lawsuit against Carter.
In rejecting the panel's finding that college students possessed greater press freedoms than high school students, the court majority said the central question was whether the Innovator could be subjected to college-administration control because it had been created as a certain type of public forum and was funded by the school.
In all my time as editor of The Pacer, I have never come across an attempt to squelch the students' sole voice on campus issues. While we enjoy a largely press-friendly administration at the UTM, this ruling casts a dark shadow over the freedom of the student press. Our funding is comprised of both ad revenue and a university subsidy, paid through a student activity fee. We are honored to be closely associated with the UTM administration, and thank them for their generous support. However, we will not put a price on our First Amendment rights and our duty to the student body.
Imagine, if you will, a host of campus administrators showing up on print night to "review" every word we're about to put on on newsprint and on the Internet. If for no other reason than being a nuisance, this should not be allowed to transpire. The students do not pay their $3.60 every semester for re-hashed, feel good stories pumped out by University Relations.
Not under my watch.
Even still, what is our contingency plan? Stop publishing? Do we own The Pacer name or does the university? Who and how are we going to pay a staff and the bills? Talk of pulling ourselves off the security blanket of a student fee subsidy without a good reason will not get us very far. But we need another layer of protection. Can the Student Government rise to the occasion of protecting the voice of the students, even when they don't agree with it? Or would they allow blind politics and hurt feelings damn the very voice they want to protect?
College newspapers across the country are in trouble. And right now, there's not a damn thing we can do about it.