Yonit Shames
Published: November 9, 2005
Free speech, one of the rights secured by the First Amendment, is more than a basic civil right. Free speech is the safeguard of democracy, particularly in the form of a free and uncensored press, because it forces those in power to be held accountable for their actions.
This includes the college press. College media is as important as its professional counterparts on the local and school levels. Because student newspapers are funded by student activity fees and are run by students, they can express criticism of administrations or local politics without fear of retribution; employees of the school cannot.
Furthermore, student newspapers often are the only media that has a serious presence on campus and provides a public venue for a balanced discussion of school-related issues.
In light of its importance, it is unfortunate and somewhat ironic that freedom of the college press is currently being questioned. Hosty v. Carter, a landmark case currently making its way to the Supreme Court, involves a student editor and staff suing an administrator who demanded prior review of the student newspaper at Governors State University in Illinois.
In July, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted Patricia Carter, the administrator, immunity from being prosecuted for censoring the newspaper. The court said it based its decision on a precedent court case, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, in which a high school administration was ruled to be able to censor the high school newspaper for content.
Basing the Hosty decision on the Hazelwood case was a shockingly poor decision. The appeals court decision does not recognize the significant differences between the cases. For one thing, college students are almost exclusively adults, whereas high schoolers are almost exclusively minors. Additionally, the Hazelwood newspaper was directly funded by the high school and produced in the framework of a journalism class; most college newspapers are funded by student fees and produced independently, without administrative input.
Furthermore, freedom of the college press has been repeatedly reaffirmed in the U.S. court system. In Antonelli vs. Hammond, for instance, it was ruled that Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts did not have the right to cut college funding to the student newspaper or demand prior review of its articles.
The administration’s lack of authority over the content of student newspapers even extends to cases in which people sue for libel printed in the paper. In two such cases, Mazart vs. State and Milliner v. Turner, the universities involved were found to not have liability for defamation in the student newspapers because they did not have editorial control over them.
Until recently, the rules of free press were applicable to the college press; Hosty v. Carter threatens to overturn that. The only difference between this censorship case and historical censorship is that the Hosty judges feel that college students are not mature enough to make decisions regarding the content of their papers. If Carter wins this case in the Supreme Court, there may be a day when papers like this one are simply not allowed to be critical of or cover school issues.
For students, that’s an alarming prospect.