Supreme Court Won't Hear Appeal On Censorship of College Paper

By: Mark Fitzgerald and The Associated Press The Supreme Court passed up a chance Tuesday to decide if college administrators can censor campus newspapers.

Justices declined without comment to review an appeal filed by former collegiate journalists at Governors State University, a public college in Illinois.

The students sued after a dean blocked the paper's printing in 2000 until she could review the news stories. Campus journalists had written unflattering stories in the Innovator about departments at the school in University Park, south of Chicago, which has about 6,000 students.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that that university faculty could regulate the paper's contents because it is published under the auspices of Governors State.

The case would have been a follow-up to a 1988 ruling that said public school officials could censor high school newspapers.

Backers of the student journalists in the latest case argue that college is very different.

"An uncensored college newspaper is vitally important to attracting college students to journalism and providing them with a real-world training ground that prepares them to become professional journalists," justices were told by lawyers for media programs at Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Georgia, the University of Missouri, and Syracuse University.

The student journalists -- Jeni Porche, Margaret Hosty, and Steven Barba -- had sued Patricia Carter, Governors State University's dean of student affairs. The appeals court overruled a district judge, in finding that Carter was shielded from the lawsuit.

"Word has already begun to spread that the standard 'hands-off student media' policies recognized by college officials in the past may no longer be required," attorney Richard Goehler told justices in a filing on behalf of many groups including the Associated Press Managing Editors, the Student Press Law Center, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The case is Hosty v. Carter, 05-377.

Lance Speere, president of the professional group College Media Advisors (CMA), told E&P the high court?s refusal to take the case was disappointing because ?we think there are a lot of problems in the Hosty decision.? On the one hand, he said, the decision said student newspapers that are ?public forums? should be protected from administration censorship, but it left open the possibliity of control over papers that receive school subsidies.

?We were hoping maybe for some clarity,? said Speere, president of The Daily Egyptian newspaper at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

?Of course, if it went to the Supreme Court they might end up affirming Hosty,? Speere added. ?For now, Hosty?s contained to one circuit (court jurisdiction), and we hope that?s as far as it goes.?

The June 2005 Hosty decision applies only to the three states covered by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In its reaction Tuesday, the Washington, D.C.-based Student Press Law Center (SPLC) said it is ?encouraging students in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin to call upon their schools to pledge their commitment to free speech by explicitly designating their student media as ?public forums? where student editors have the right to make editorial decisions free from administrative interference.?

SPLC said that since the appeals court decision last June, a small number of schools in those states have made that declaration, and that ?it is expected that others will follow as student and faculty groups demand such action.