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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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First Amendment Case Headed To Federal Court In Illinois |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jon Pike
(No verified email address) |
06 Sep 2002
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A First Amendment battle is headed to federal court in Illinois. At stake is
how much control college administrators will have over student college newspapers.
Staff members of the Governor's State University Innovator say that college
officials exercised unconstitutional
prior restraint over the newspaper. Organizations that fight for the First
Amendment rights of student newspapers, like the Illinois College Association
and the Student Press Law Center , say that if the staff of the Innovator loses
their battle then college administrators will have the same powers over college
papers that the US Supreme Court gave high school administrators in a 1989 case
that originated in the St. Louis Area: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. |
Staff members of the Governor's State University Innovator say that college officials exercised unconstitutional prior restraint (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/09.html) over the newspaper. Organizations that fight for the First Amendment rights of student newspapers, like the Illinois College Association and the Student Press Law Center , say that if the staff of the Innovator loses their battle then college administrators will have the same powers over college papers that the US Supreme Court gave high school administrators in a 1989 case that originated in the St. Louis Area: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier.
In October of 2000, Maragret Hosty and Jeni Porche, two writers for the Governor's State
University, student newspaper, The Innovator found out that a school official held up the publication of the paper. The Innovator is published by the Student Communications and Media Board, an office of the university charged with overseeing student produced media, like the newspaper. Hosty and Porche were serving as student senators during this time and had written several articles critical of the student government and administration.
Relations between the paper and school administration were tenuous at this point. The advisor for the paper, Dr. Geoffrey de LaForcade was in the process of leaving the university because of issues between him and the university, and according legal documents filed in the case, the staff didn't get along with the new advisor. According to the written policy for the paper, the students didn't need to have the advisor, or university officials approve the content of the paper. According to the documents, Dean Patricia Carter, was in charge of the board that had oversight of the Innovator, and said she did not know if an advisor was in place at the Innovator during this time. She called the printer before the October 31 issue was printed to ask to see the paper. She then prevented that issue from being published
However, de LaForcade told the Student Press Law Center's news web site, that he believes the real reason why Carter intervened was because that issue had an article about grievances between him and the university. According to the June 2001 issue of the Campus Legal Advisor (http://www.studentaffairs.com/cla/jun01.html) the administration took other steps against the paper including: prohibiting further publication without administrative approval, suspending the newspaper's budget and removing newspaper files.
Governor's State University Officials did not return a phone message and an e-mail request for comment.
Some first amendment watchers say that the stakes are high in this case. In 1989, a case from the St. Louis area went to the U.S. Supreme Court and gave high school administrators great leeway in exercising prior restraint over student newspapers. Prior restraint is when any government official, including school administrators, prevents material from being published or broadcast. In the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, students in a journalism class at a Hazelwood East High School, produced an article on teen pregnancy. The principal read a draft of the article and said that the students identified in the article did not have their privacy sufficiently protected. He excised the articles from the paper.
The students sued under the First Amendment and a federal appeals court said that such prior restraint could only be exercised in extraordinary circumstances such as if it was likely that the school would be likely to be sued if the article was published. This court held that normal First Amendment provisions applied to student publications.
However, in writing for the U.S. Supreme court, Justice Byron White said that schools and school publications were different. Particularly, "A school must be able to take into account the emotional maturity of the intended audience in determining whether to disseminate speech on potentially sensitive topics." This was the state of affairs that the principal of Hazelwood East found himself, said the court, and the principal was correct in exercising his power to judge the emotional maturity of his students and to protect them if need be. Under these circumstances, the court said that this principal had the right to make the call.
First amendment advocates say that these same powers will be granted to college administrators if the court rules against the student reporters at The Innovator.
"What the university is arguing here," says Mark Goodman of the Student Press Law Center, "is that college students have no more rights than high school students in school media and other school sponsored statement."
Very recent court decisions may be on the side of the Governor's State Students. Such as a 2001 Federal court case from Kentucky, Kincaid v. Gibson (http://www.belcherfoundation.org/kincaid_v_gibson.htm). In the early 1990's, a university official tried to prevent the student yearbook at Kentucky State University, The Thorobred, from being distributed. The students chose the theme, 'Destination Unknown,' to reflect the political and social climate that they felt graduates in the early 1990s were facing. The book also included numerous photographs of current events that were not directly a part of university life. **The Vice-President for Student Affairs, Betty Gibson didn't believe that the contents of the yearbook were and attempted to block its distribution. However, the sixth circuit court of appeals sided with the students and said, "There can be no serious argument about the fact that in its most basic form, the yearbook serves as a forum in which student editors present pictures, captions, and other written material and that these materials constitute statement for the purposes of the First Amendment."
In this case, the federal court held that even in the case where the medium in question was not a news source, it was still a public forum and that the student editors had great leeway in determining what was appropriate for it. This leeway, the court said, even extends to official organs of colleges and universities that are funded by the institution in question.
An interesting wrinkle to the current case, is that the Attorney General of Illinois, Jim Ryan (http://www.ag.state.il.us/), who is running for governor this year, has decided to weigh in on the side of the Governor's State officials. The Attorney General has submitted a brief in the case.
The Illinois Attorney General seems to think that the standards that were developed in Hazelwood can be applied to adults at a university. This belief is demonstrated by many references in the brief to the Hazelwood decision. The Attorney General's brief says that Hazelwood could apply because, 'The US supreme court, explicitly declined to decide whether the deference accorded to high school officials would also apply at the post-secondary level.' In other words, the Attorney General is arguing that because the Supreme Court didn't acknowledge a difference between high school and university publications, the Hazelwood case could apply here, because the Supreme Court didn't say it couldn't.
His argument goes from this point that Hazelwood could apply to public university and college newspapers. The brief specifically references Hazelwood in saying that, "The University had a significant interest in ensuring that that a writer's views would not be erroneously thought to bear the University's imprimatur." This supports Hazelwood's conclusions that a paper published by an educational institution could be thought of as representing the views of that institution. Further, the brief argues, "the court held that a school may refuse to disseminate a school sponsored newspaper if it contains speech that is ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, or biased or prejudiced unless it has shown an intent to make the paper a public or limited public forum." The Attorney General is arguing that the Hazelwood principles apply to this case, because The Innovator, as an official university publication is not a public forum. This is directly in opposition to the federal court ruling in Kincaid v. Gibson, that student produced media, are public forums and protected by the First Amendment from prior restraint by government officials.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is supposed to take up the Governor's case in its fall 2002 term.
Its immediate impact would be on public university and college newspapers in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. But, in the absence of any specific US Supreme Court ruling that such newspapers are fully protected from prior restraint by school officials, this court's ruling could be applied to cases in other states in the Midwest and across the country.www.stlimc.org/front.php3?article_id=322... |
