Ruling Disappoints Student Press Advocates
“The U.S. Supreme Court announced this morning that it will not hear a case that questioned the authority of administrators at an Illinois university to censor a student newspaper that published articles critical of the school,” the Student Press Law Center reports.
“The Court rejected a request by former student journalists at Governors State University in Illinois to review a lower court decision that could give university officials in three Midwestern states the authority to censor some college student speech based on a legal standard that had previously been applied only to high school and elementary school students and teachers.
“As is its usual practice when ruling on whether or not to accept a case, the Court did not issue a written opinion to explain its decision.
“The Court’s ruling lets stand a June 2005 decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that could open the door to providing university administrators with authority to censor school-sponsored speech by public college students and faculty, including speech in some student newspapers, at schools in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
“. . . By refusing to hear the case, the Court lets stand the extension to colleges of a censorship standard it created to oversee speech by students as young as five years old. The 7th Circuit’s decision is only binding in three states and is in direct conflict with decisions of other state and federal courts around the country.
“Today’s ruling disappointed student press advocates.
“. . . Legal experts point out that although today’s decision may encourage more efforts by college administrators to censor, the lower court’s decision still recognizes that college student publications can be established in a way that gives students strong First Amendment protections.”
“Students cannot prepare for the news business if they cannot freely practice journalism, said a disappointed Valerie D. White, chair of the Black College Communication Association, an organization of faculty members teaching journalism at black colleges and universities,” Bravetta Hassell added tonight in a story on Black College Wire. “None of the nation’s historically black schools is in Indiana, Illinois or Wisconsin.
â??’Itâ??s great that it only extends to three states, but it does not keep other college administrators from testing the waters,’ White said,” the story continued. It noted that only days ago, at an HBCU Newspaper Conference in Greensboro, N.C., student editors from historically black colleges discussed First Amendment breaches affecting their newspapers.
- College-Paper Censorship Case Headed to Supreme Court (Black College Wire)