June 20, 2002

Case may hand control of Ill. college newspapers to administrators

By Brian Peach, Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois U.

College newspapers in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin may soon be getting an influence from university administrators if Attorney General Jim Ryan has anything to say about it.

Less than two months ago, Ryan wrote a brief at the request of an administrator at Governors State University in University Park that may virtually eliminate the First Amendment freedoms of free press college newspapers have.

This would allow administrators to look at issues before they are published and approve or reject any content.

"This is potentially very dangerous," said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "It has implications far beyond the campus newspaper at Governors State. It definitely relates to the rights someone has to express themselves freely at public universities." The brief by Ryan argues that the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court's decision to censor high school newspapers in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier should be used as the precedent case in censoring college newspapers.

Goodman and college-level editors and advisors fear that the courts may rule differently. The lasting effects on college publications and other student expression would be hard to overcome if the courts side with Governors State University.

What makes Goodman and others even more nervous is that the students at Governors State's publication, the GSU Innovator, are representing themselves in the case and not hiring professional lawyers.

"It's unfortunate they're doing that, and I wish that were not the case," Goodman said. "I do think their case is going to be more complicated, and it's going to make their case harder to win."

No one from the GSU Innovator was available for comment. The university has since shut down the publication and locked staff members out of their offices.

Goodman said one problem he sees with the brief is that he doesn't think Jim Ryan is completely aware of the severity of the case's implications.

"It doesn't seem like a very rational step to take," Goodman said. "My guess is the Attorney General's office didn't pay much attention to what they were doing and their reasons for doing it. I can't believe that the political consequences were not fully thought through, because if they were, I can say they were seriously miscalculated."

Scott Mulfer, one of Ryan's press secretaries, had never heard of the case brief that Ryan had written up until the Daily Egyptian informed him of it, at which point he said the brief would have been filed simply in the role of representing GSU.

The case brief claims that the Hazelwood decision should apply to college publications because they can be called "nonpublic forums." The brief refers to the papers as such because universities claim it is "common practice" for non-student advisors to approve content that is published.

According to the Student Press Law Center, the students who worked for the GSU Innovator said an advisor never approved content that went into the paper. Other college newspapers, such as the Daily Egyptian, also have faculty advisors who do not exercise editorial control, making the papers entirely student-operated.

To date, no court has found a student-operated college publication to be a nonpublic forum, but that may change in the Governors State case if the students can prove the Innovator is a public forum.

More briefs for the case are due out in July, and the hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit will likely be this fall.

Goodman said groups such as the Student Press Law Center and others will likely come forward to protest Governors State's claim, but they cannot fight the GSU Innovator's battle for them.

"I think Governors State and the Attorney General's office will be very surprised when they see the number of organizations and individuals who come out against the argument," Goodman said.