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First Amendment Fight Continues In Illinois	Current rating: 0
by Jon R. Pike Email: profpike (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)	05 Nov 2002
yahoo.com Governor's State University Students Margaret Hosty and Jenni Porche are fighting for the right to have an independent student press at their university.
The lives of Governor's State University students, Jenni Porche and Margaret Hosty are on hold as they battle their own university. In October of last year, the two former editors of the student newspaper, The Innovator, found out that a university official attempted to prevent an issue from being published. During their tenure as editors at this suburban Chicago campus Porche and Hosty had published many articles critical of the university. One of the articles in that issue had to do with conflicts between the university and its faculty advisor, Bill De La Forcade. It was a conflict that eventually ended in La Forcade leaving Governor's State and the paper's article cast serious doubt with how the university dealt with this teacher. The legal process is grinding along extremely slowly for the two. Though both had wanted to graduate, they have had to keep their student status in order for them to keep their legal status in this case. The case has a St. Louis connection as one of the major cases in play is a case that started in the Hazelwood school district, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. That case gave high school administrators great leeway over the content of high school papers. One side is arguing that university administrators should have that same leeway over college newspapers. Porche and Hosty say they are fighting for an independent student press in a case that will set legal precedents. The Case is currently before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The Court has recently decided that they will not be hearing oral arguments in this case. They will issue a ruling based on the documents they have received sometime before the end of the year. A ruling would be immediately in effect at state universities in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Governor's State University did not respond to phone and e-mail requests for information and interviews directed to the president's office. Hosty and Porche discussed their case with this reporter Q: How did you get to the point of suing the university? JP: Simply put, they were breaking the law. When we first recognized that there was a problem was when the printer had contacted us and said, 'Something doesn't seem to be right here and we've just talked to a Dean of yours and something is off.' Margaret followed it up and asked for a letter from the printer saying exactly what had transpired and from there we set up the process of trying to get answers from the university. Q: So you found out form the Printer that someone from the university was inquiring about the October 31st issue of The Innovator? JP: We found out they were looking to halt it being printed. And that began the process of us trying to set up a two-way discourse with the university to answer some questions. Q: What did you attempt to do with the University before you got to the point of taking them to court? JP: We completely followed the chain-of-command as outlined in university procedures. First we went to our publishing body, the Student Communication and Media Board, and we eventually followed right up to the president's body and finally to the board of directors at the university. Q: So, you followed every procedure you were supposed to and at ever point you asked, 'Why was there interference with this issue of the paper?' JP: Absolutely, and we got nothing. That's what was so disturbing, we followed all the rules as we understood them put forth by the university and they wouldn't enter into a dialogue with us. Q: What were some of the hot-button issues that you published in the October 31st issue? JP: We don't know. In my opinion, it's never been pointed out to us exactly what problem if any the university had with this issue. The communication has never been that good from the university as to what the problem was. We don't know if it was this specific issue, we don't know it's because we signed on as editors. I don't even know if I'm comfortable saying this was the offending issue. M.H.: When (GSU President) Fagan could not even say under oath, when he was deposed, he could not cite what he found so offensive in it. When they put the paper in front of him in court, he could not cite what was inaccurate in it or what was so offensive. They just said it, 'It was the general buzz on campus.' My opinion is that, number one we had published a lot of articles that were critical of the administration and number two, we published a number of letters from students and other people that did not put the university in a good light. And also, we were in the process of investigating further improprieties by the administration. Pretty much everything we investigated about the university turned out to be true and they were probably afraid of what we would publish in the future as well. Q: As far as you could tell, there was nothing that you published that would put the university in danger of publishing a newspaper that was printing libel? M.H. There was nothing actionable at all, even in the last issue we were involved with. JP: we had an advisor who told us we were getting pretty dodgy and that we were getting in pretty murky water but that was the reason he was in place as our advisor. M.H. We held off on one story for six months, that was the story about the problems our advisor, Bill De La Forcade was having with the university. We held off on that story until the arbitration process was over. I actually went to the arbitration hearings; I got a copy of his portfolio and his academic reviews. We sent letters of enquiry to people who had written recommendations for him. We wanted to protect ourselves and they never accused of publishing anything libelous. Except for the dean and the president of the university and then they could not substantiate the accusations they had made against us. The dean had said we were a bunch of liars and he indeed was found culpable of having wrongly fired our advisor and the university had to pay him 18-thousand dollars in back pay.Now the president had said that we published a pack of lies and tried to substantiate us not reporting facts and ended up getting his facts wrong. He cited a wrong meeting, he said an exchange never happened when we had as a letter to the editor a letter to that verified what we had reported from the former senate (faculty) president that said that, 'Yes the exchange we reported happening did take place.' By this point, they had already shut the paper down and we had no way to follow up on this information to defend ourselves and say, 'The dean did wrongfully dismiss our advisor, the president did not get his facts straight.' We had material evidence and we went to the faculty senate that followed when the October 31st issue came out and the faculty senate voted attempted to resolutely condemn us without once contacting us to find out if we corroborate our information and the only reason they didn't condemn us is because three faculty senate members stood up and said that what the senate was doing was like Nazi Germany and that they shouldn't pronounce judgment against us. They then decided to form a committee and investigate us instead of the ethics of the faculty member we had reported on and who just that there throughout the whole meeting and they didn't ask her anything. Q: Now one of the things that has been said about you two is that you two may have had political axes to grind as you two were student senators as well as editors of the newspaper. How do you respond to this charge? MH: The problem with people who make that claim is that they have no idea what it's like here. The fact is that it's extremely difficult to get students involved because 80-percent of the population if this school is working mothers who just don't have the time with school and work and family to get involved with things like student government. The students who are here are aware that the administration has a history of lashing out against students who clash with it. And so many students feel intimidated and don't want to strand up and take roles in government at the university. There is no compensation for doing this. Although the university has illegally funded students who were opposed to what we were doing at the paper. We were some of the few people in the senate who the university did not give stipends to, which is arbitrary and them money was awarded by the dean that we were investigating. SO as for us having political power, we were grossly outnumbered and couldn't accomplish anything and we were also investigating our fellow senators of wrongdoing and they were in collusion with the administration as it turns out. We did not vote on anything that had to do with the media. We did so voluntarily, we were not required to do it. I am not a member of the Student Media Board. Only Jenni was on that board and she was a non-voting member of this board and I had no voting powers ever on that board. Q: So you're saying that if there was ever a potential conflict of interest you recused yourself? JP: Yes and that was reflected in the minutes of the Student Senate each and every time. We also said that every time we were interested in discussing the issues that would arise in situations like this. We only served on the student senate because it was so difficult here to motivate students to be involved in extracurricular activities. there was a history of student apathy here. Getting people charged up about working on the student senate and the paper was difficult. We never backed away from discussing any issues where our roles were blurred. Our issue is that new, arbitrary rules were created that only applied to us. Now if rules had been in place when we were sworn in as senators then that would be completely different we would be having a much different conversation. The fact is, we didn't even put ourselves on the ballot. We were write-in candidates and we thought, well, this would be one way to serve the community. We wanted to advance some concerns before the administration and we just thought this would be another way to do it. M.H. And it put us in a very unique position, because it made us aware of the abundantly corrupt nature of the university administration to an extent to which we had not been aware of in our editorial roles and we became senators in May of 2000 and were made editors at about the same time because students feared reprisals from the university administration because they feared that the university would retaliate. We were able to afford individuals the confidentiality and then taking the information we had to the student senate because if these students had brought the information to the senate they, then they would have had to do it publicly and administrators were present at those student senate meetings. People could come to us with problems, we could report about it, but we could also take it to the senate. And many things that the student senate was able to do was because of information that we were able to get because of the fact that we were both senators and editors. Jenni has likened GSU to a third world country and it certainly is in that there is an oligarchy that is extremely repressive and corrupt and withholding the goods and the services from those most in need. I'd like to compare this place to pre-revolutionary America, Benjamin Franklin was a commercial pressman, and a newspaper publisher and a politician, because there was so much that needed to be done. We had to assume both roles. Q: Having been part of the university environment, I'm certainly aware that those who get involved with publications and newspapers are also involved with other student activities and that it's certainly different than the working press. Are you saying that you had no more conflict of interest than anybody else in this type of situation? MH: We don't believe so, because people like ourselves get involved for reasons of activism. The student senate and the newspaper are supposed to share the same goal of benefiting the student body and so they're really not the antithesis of each other. The say that the newspaper is supposed to be the watchdog of the government, yes that is a role, but it's not THE role. So, when they can work together for the common good of the student body and the university community in general Q: Having been at universities, I'm certainly aware that people who are involved with publications are also with student organizations, and that it's kind of unique as compared to the 'real world'. What I hear you saying is that you had no more conflict of interest than anyone else involved in student organizations and student government, is that correct? M.H. We don't believe so, because people like ourselves, and people with our background have reasons for being involved with activism. The student Senate and the student newspaper are supposed to share the same goals: They're supposed to serve and benefit the student body and so they're really not the anti-thesis of each other, in terms of what they do. They say that the newspaper is supposed to be a watchdog of the government. Yes, that is certainly a function of the newspaper, but not THE function. They can work together for the common good of the student body in general. I don't think these roles are in any way opposed to each other. Q: Essentially the nut of the case at the appeals level is that the same restrictions that high school newspapers are under should also apply to college newspapers, obviously you disagree with this, could you explain why? MH: The US Supreme Court and other federal courts have taken the position consistently that because of the maturity of the demographic, prior restraint, withholding publication is never allowed. Prior restraint is only allowed under Near V. Minnesota in which the supreme court said among other things that prior restraint can only apply during war time and withholding the publication of troop movements, which is something we have absolutely refrained from doing (Laughs). Now the university is also arguing that the dean should not be held culpable, because she could not know that her actions were illegal. She was granted some immunity, but she was held culpable under a different law, as an individual operating under color of law. She was a sworn state official who had to take an oath to uphold both the US and state constitution. The law is very clear that the state cannot infringe upon our rights. So, even if she can claim as and administrator that she did not know what she could not do, she should have known under her role as a state official, she did not have the right to infringe upon the first amendment. Q: But it couldn't be the case that ignorance of the law could be used as an excuse in this case, could it? MH: The US Supreme Court has ruled that ignorance of the law is no excuse and that willful negligence or ignorance to the point where it infringes of the rights of others is not an excuse before the law. The US Supreme Court has said so and at the very least she should have known what the university regulations are and the university regulations prohibited what she did. So she couldn't go before the court and say I didn't know what the university regulations were and then have the court say to her, 'you don't know what your won regulations are?' You can't claim ignorance like that and have a court buy it. Q: A lot of people have at least a minimal understanding of what the First Amendment is, but you also claim that there was other amendments at play in this case and your rights under those were violated? What Constitutional protections are those? Q: So what was the lower court activity in this case? MH: In district court, basically the judge threw out everyone except the dean who had called the printer. The judge ruled that the dean had special privileges as a representative of the state that while she had to stand trial, she had the right to appeal, which she did. So they filed an appeal, the appellate briefs are all in right now. They petitioned for her to not have to stand trial and that college newspapers would be subject to the same restrictions that high school newspapers should be under Hazelwood v. Khulmeiere. The court will review the briefs and rule sometime this fall. I think we should tell you that we were fully prepared to go to press, we had been editing and writing and doing layout right up until the end of our tenure as editors, which was April of 2001. But the printing agency would not print anything because the university had threatened non=payment. They posted armed guards at meetings they fired us illegally, for a week. We were miraculously reinstated the very day after I had sent a letter to the president pointing out that this was illegal. When the media board's president was deposed in court, he was asked, 'Whose idea was it to reinstate them,' and he told them, 'Oh, it was the media board's idea.' He said this not knowing that I had an e-mail that said that it was the administration's idea. Q: a lot of people have at least a minimal understanding of what the First Amendment is, but you also claim that there was other amendments at play in this case and your rights under those were violated? What Constitutional protections are those? MH: Certainly, the 14th Amendment is very much a part of our lawsuit, as their actions were very much in violation of our procedural and substantive due process rights. They were discriminatory. Certainly the creation of the new newspaper was a violation of due process, they did not open the interviews to the public, and they were administrative appointments. Q: Because of what you've told me about the nature of Governor's State and the Nature of the newspaper, does it seem to you at all unlikely that investigations by your paper are leading to a major fight over the First Amendment? JP: It was the last thing on my mind. MH: we tried everything. We even held off a month because the university's trustees promised to form a committee to investigate the matter. When we realized that the web of corruption we had to get through was so extensive and set against us. And the reason we don't have a daily newspaper after thirty something years is because of student apathy and because of the fact that the administration punishes students that get out of line and the administration sabotages such efforts, because we certainly had no intention of only putting out four issues in six months, but because of sabotage, that's all we were able to do. We were working 120 hours a week each without getting paid, there was that much work to do. We can't help the fact that were not a big name university or university newspaper. We're suing on principle. We really don't think that the size of the university or the newspaper should matter. Q: Getting back to what happened to you, you said previously that you went through all the processes that the university laid out for you, that you were supposed to follow, how did you get from that point and what were the lower court actions before you got to federal court? JP: After exhausting every possible channel and having doors closed to us and having the board, which is supposed to be the part of the university that is most dedicated to the well being of the students, saying 'we'll form a committee and we'll look into it' and then have no other contact with us, we didn't have any other choice. We had weeks and weeks of our tenure as editors and we had no functioning newspaper in terms of their allowing us to go to press. So, what could we possibly do? We've asked, we've knocked on doors, we've written letters, we've attended all of the necessary meetings, only to have us put aside and given very nonsensical answers by the trustees and they knew full well it was a newspaper we had stories expiring every week and they're talking about forming a committee, maybe, and getting back to us, maybe. I t was a last ditch effort. What else we could do? We could either, as I think they were hoping, they we would take would take our personal items out of the office and just give up and say, 'This isn't worth it.' I have said to Margaret a hundred times, 'If we had full time or part-time jobs, outside of the university there would be no way we could put out the newspaper or make the stand that we have against the university.' Q: I came here and indeed found that there was a new newspaper that was obviously supposed to be a replacement of the Innovator, that instead of a name at this point has a drawing of a name tag with the phrase 'Hello My Name Is.' attached to it. When did you find out about this paper's existence? MH: I found out that they were trying to start a newspaper when we still had sources who were on very good terms for us who told of us about internal e-mails that were circulating regarding the start of this newspaper and they were looking for administrators to nominate people to be editors and staff for this paper and so I sent a letter to the university's attorney, in a freedom of information request to obtain all documents that were relevant to the starting of this paper. This paper came out on August 26th, which was the start of the new trimester and that's when I first saw it. It's nothing but a piece of propaganda for the university. In the newspaper, the administrators blamed us for a number of things we couldn't possibly be responsible for. We refused to put nothing but big pictures of the administrators and sunshine news in the paper, even when the dean actually bribed us to do so. Now that they have deliberately prevented us from applying, or anyone else who might be critical of the administration. This newspaper has printed nothing but big pictures with sunshine news since it started. Q: You have numerous allies that have come on board to help you in your legal battle, what allies have you found? MH: 24 national organizations have filed briefs on our behalf. These include university journalism departments and the American Society of Newspaper editors, the Associated Press Managers, The Illinois College Press Association, the Student Press law Center. The court has just recently sent us notice that defense is not opposing to have one of these briefs considered, they had been holding off allowing one of the attorneys who wrote one of these briefs to argue the case in the court, because we cannot do it ourselves. Now we did receive a notice from the defense saying that they would not oppose oral argument on behalf of that brief, because Hazelwood has not been resolutely determined as to whether it applies to college newspapers. Now, even though the language of the Supreme Court does not cite Hazelwood specifically, the history of the rulings says that administration may not infringe on the publishing rights of college newspapers. Kincaid v. Gibson is a federal case, and it involves a college yearbook, well the gentleman who drafted an amicus brief for our case drafted a bore for that case and they won! That was a yearbook and they said it was still la public forum. What the university is trying to argue is that our newspaper was not a limited public forum. Which is a bunch of baloney, because the Supreme Court ruled that newspapers, even if they are developed as part of a curriculum for a class are still a forum for public expression. Q: Well, I would certainly think that if a yearbook could be considered a public forum then wouldn't it have to be almost certain that a newspaper would be a public forum? MH: And that was why Kincaid v. Gibson had to go to court, because nobody had done the analysis on a yearbook. Newspapers, it's pretty much a given that it's a limited public forum and Jenny and I, in every issue, issued invitations to the public. We printed letters from staff, faculty, and students. The only people who never had a letter published were the administrators because they chose to disobey the universities own regulations and circulate letters about us outside of the newspaper. Circulating defamatory material about us through out the campus. We published letters from every faction of the university. Not just students, it was a limited public forum. And the Supreme Court has said that even when the government is responsible for the creation of a newspaper it loses all control over it when it becomes a public forum. Q: How important do you think you case is? MH: This will establish legal precedents, we've been told that. In fact, the Student Press Law Center was so concerned at one point that it attempted to dissuade us from proceeding. Because It did not wish to risk an adverse ruling and we reasoned with them and told them that we thought that if we didn't proceed we'd be ushering in an age comparable to Nazi Germany and its Ministries of Enlightenment and Propaganda and my mother was a refugee from World War II and knew what Nazi oppression was like and I couldn't allow anything like that to happen and we could never have been ashamed for having been victims if we had fought this. If the court does rule against us, it won't be on us, it will be on them, they should be ashamed. But, I don't think we will lose, because unlike district court, an appellate court has to and does consider legal precedents and the legal precedents are in our favor. One of the cases that they're arguing is called Wilson v. Lane and that case says that in order for the dean to be granted qualified immunity the y would have to cite cases that are comparable in which the litigant was not held culpable and there are none. There no cases where a government official can interfere with First Amendment rights, so they have very, very slender ground to stand on. Fortunately for us, the court that will be ruling in our case has in the past said that censorship of newspapers, or other publications is illegal. In a case involving the Chicago Board of Education, they could not permit prior restraint of a publication published in the Chicago School System. This court would be overturning its own rulings if it ruled against us. So we have those things in our favor. Q: So, then you were told that by going into the appellate process that this was a high stakes game? MH: This case will establish legal precedents. Because we are at the appellate level, however this case gets ruled, if it does not go to the supreme court, or if a comparable case does not go to the supreme court, this case will be cited forevermore at least for the three states in its jurisdiction, which is Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, and if no tore courts hear a comparable case, then this will be the case that will be cited in cases in all 50 states. Q: What are the most immediate activities coming up in this case? MH: Were waiting to hear if the court will hear oral argument for an amicus brief, it could be a month, it could be three months. So the court will then decide whether GSU has to stand trial or not. That will kick it back down to district court and then that court will have to set a trial date. We were scheduled to go to trial in January and then GSU put in for an appeal. Q: So, then you're looking at a long-term commitment to this case? MH: I figure it's at least another two years. There will be an appeal after the trial. This is just the appeal to see if they have to stand trial. Then there's the whole proceedings of the trial and then undoubtedly another appeal by them. Even that could go to the US Supreme Court. I doubt it will, because in my research I discovered that the Supreme Court doesn't like to have to deal with cases that have thousands upon thousands of pages of documents and has this many defendants and violations, and what have you. They put in for a settlement conference just after we got our pro se status and they're kicking themselves, we've been told, because you legally cannot go into a settlement conference with people who have been given that status. So, they put in too late, they then put in the appeal, probably, because they wanted to stall for time, they probably put in the research and found out that they didn't have any legal backing for their side and then wanted to settle with us. But, we're not interested in settling, we are interested in the guilty parties being held culpable, we're interested in restoring our reputations, and being reinstated to our positions, so that we can publish that which we intended and completing our tenure. Q: What has been the personal cost to you? MH: It's been very taxing, emotionally, physically and mentally. Financially it has seriously impeded our getting on with our lives. They are still retaliating against us, for which we are going to have to probably bring other litigation against them. We both should have graduated about a year ago. JP: The Academic Community is a small on. You know, everything in terms of what it has cost us, in terms of time and emotional currency. You know, letters of recommendation from our department, gone. We were outstanding students, I don't mind saying that. That's not something that you can make up in a few weeks someplace else. It's been interesting in terms of the schools we're applying for our Ph.D.'s, How many people at those schools know people who know us from here, who have been misinformed about us? We were living in an unbelievably hostile environment around here it felt like wartime around here. We felt we were being encircled. MH: Have you ever been on a campus and had armed guards posted at doors to keep you out of places? They were not being subtle about their animosity towards us. The thing that people don't seem to realize is, because GSU has done such a wonderful job keeping it out of the press, is that were not the only students who have made charges of violations of fourteenth and First amendment violations against this university. There are 32 other people who have done as much. They had the same judge we did and they are going to be before the appellate court. And if there were a student newspaper, or a student newspaper that was not in the back pocket of the administration, perhaps we would have been able to tell them

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Re: First Amendment Fight Continues In Illinois
by Stephanie N. Blahut & Margaret Hosty rebelyell5877 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified)	Current rating: 0 16 Oct 2005
Revoke SPJ Sunshine Award to Illinois Attorney General Please sign the online petition at: http://new.petitiononline.com/SPJPlea1/petition.html Greetings to you, whomever you might be. My name is Margaret L. Hosty, and I am the titular plaintiff in the matter of Hosty v. Carter, which now has a petition on file with The Supreme Court of the United States, in which my co-plaintiffs and I are asking the superior court to overturn an Orwellian decision which effectively eviscerates First Amendment freedoms for adult students and journalists, in that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit preposterously has ruled that adults have no more rights than do children when at school. I have gleaned your name from a list of journalists interested in FOI or First Amendment issues, or from the Society of Professional Journalists web site, and I have remembered to include any reporters with whom I have spoken in the past having shown an interest in the case when it was in the lower courts. I am urgently requesting that you sign the petition I have created at the web address of http://new.PetitionOnline.com/SPJPlea1/petition.html ; attached herein is a letter which explains in greater detail why you should lend your support to and voice your concern as regards the request made in said petition. In a nutshell, the SPJ has determined to honor Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan with a "Sunshine Award," despite the fact that Madigan was the one who strenuously petitioned that the restrictive parameters of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlemeir extend to adult students, which has resulted in a court decision which has determined that there is no distinction between colleges and kindergartens when it comes to the exercise of First Amendment freedoms, based solely on the presence of subsidy. The SPJ intends to honor Madigan later this month (mid-October 2005), so your expedient response is respectfully requested by yours truly; please send the SPJ individuals responsible for the decision the message that, as a member of the community whose interests it claims to serve, this is not acceptable behavior. Make no mistake about it; when it comes to First Amendment rights, this is war, and the SPJ has attempted to assume the role of a double agent, in that it first condemned Madigan for her legal argument, and now praises the same offending individual for some other alleged propriety. In war, we don't give medals to someone who defends one of his fellow troops, but then murders another of our soldiers in his place; no soldier could rest easy with a known Benedict Arnold in his or her barracks, and if the troops knew of the duplicitous conduct, assuredly, they would out the traitor. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION, and out the SPJ traitors for who they really are, so that the organization itself does not suffer as a whole. Famed activist Saul D. Alinsky had once written, "Action and articulation are one and the same, as are silence and surrender." Never surrender your First Amendment freedoms, and please lend your support to the effort to revoke Madigan's "Sunshine Award". Cordially yours, Margaret L. Hosty Please view related attachement by clicking the link below: http://www.sams-corner.com/SpImages/SPJ_Boycott_Plea.do "The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first objective should be to keep the right; and were it to me to decide whether we should have a government without a newspaper or a newspaper without a government i should hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -Thomas Jefferson ========================================= Freedom of Speech @ MySpace.com http://www.myspace.com/freedom_of_speech (sent c/o Stephanie at rebelyell5877 (at) yahoo.com)