Summary of Hosty v. Governors State University

By John K. Wilson

According to the Governors State University website, “The INNOVATOR has been in continuous existence since 1971.” Continuous existence, that is, if you don’t count the last 18 months. Since October 31, 2000, the Innovator newspaper has not been published.

There is no doubt that the October 31, 2000 issue was controversial, since it included a front-page story about the dismissal of the Innovator’s faculty adviser, “De Laforcade’s Dispute Reaches 3^rd Phase Arbitration.”

Roger Oden, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote a campuswide response to the issue, calling Margaret Hosty’s article “defamation” because it was “a collection of untruths and I believe that they know they are untrue. I also believe they are being written with the intent and purpose to damage my reputation.”(Oden, 2000)

President Stuart Fagan also wrote a campuswide memo: “The role of a free press is to present accurate and balanced reports of the news of the day that impact the quality of life of its readers. With few exceptions, the October 31^st edition of the INNOVATOR just did not measure up to accepted journalistic standards of professionalism.” Fagan declared, “I will not sit idly by, without comment, and allow the reputation of the university to be sullied by newspaper reporting that is inaccurate, insulting, and that might be driven, in part, by self-interest.”(Fagan, 2000)

Fagan concluded, “I have—and will always be—a proponent of the free press. I know the unfortunate possibility of what could happen when a free press is muzzled.” Fagan’s open letter to the Innovator would have an unfortunate irony: it would never be printed because the October 31, 2000 issue of the Innovator was the last one ever published.

The Administration did not sit idly by. Patricia Carter, dean of student affairs, contacted the printer to order that no further issues be printed until prior review had been made by a top administrator, since the new faculty adviser was too far away to review it.

The Illinois College Press Association investigated and determined, “administrators have acted inappropriately, and probably illegally, with blatant disregard for students' First Amendment rights.”(ICPA, 2001)

According to the ICPA, “Editors claim that funding has been suspended, office locks have been changed and sensitive mail and e-mail has disappeared. The adviser has been fired, after encouraging students to make the paper less of a community bulletin board and more of a publication that independently investigates substantive issues on campus.”

The ICPA also noted, “In perhaps the most blatant and disturbing incident, the paper's out-of-town printer confirmed to us having received a telephone call from Patricia Carter, dean of student affairs, saying not to print any more issues of the Innovator unless she or another administrator had reviewed and approved the content.”

The ICPA criticized the paper for having editors who served in the student senate, for having an article written by the faculty advisor, and for mixing news and commentary in front-page stories. However, it asserted that administrators had no right to force any changes and certainly not to shut down the newspaper: “Courts consistently have affirmed the First Amendment rights of student journalists at public colleges and universities. A keystone in these rights is freedom from prior review --even by the adviser.”

According to Federal District Judge Suzanne Conlon, “Dean Carter denies she demanded prior approval and contends she instructed Richards to call her regarding the newspaper so that a faculty member could review the paper for journalistic quality, e.g., grammatical mistakes. She contends this was necessary because the newspaper's faculty advisor was at a new post four hours from campus and was not readily available to assist the Innovator staff.”

Needless to say, it staggers the imagination to believe that suddenly, a few days after the Innovator published an issue that caused two top administrators to write letters to the campus condemning the newspaper, administrators made a neutral decision to begin prior review of the paper for spelling mistakes without any intention of controlling the content. Even if this were the case, it would still be in violation of the law. Courts have firmly established that prior review of a newspaper at a public college is unconstitutional even if due purely to correct mistakes.

The former adviser, Geoffrey de Laforcade reported that he saw the Innovator “blossom into something better than it ever had been. Aside from the talent and honesty of the editors, what struck me most was their willingness to inform to the best of their abilities on issues of concern to the entire campus community.” De Laforcade, declared: “It is no accident that the newspaper is prevented from appearing and playing its role at a time when another accreditation scandal has compromised the future of dozens of students in the Masters of Social Work program. The student editors will be fully vindicated when GSU is forced to answer in court to its unethical and illegal procedures against the INNOVATOR.”(de Laforcade, 2001)

If the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals accepts Governors State University’s argument that Hazelwood gives them the authority for prior review of a college newspaper, it will create a conflict in the circuit courts that only the Supreme Court will be able to resolve. For Governors State University, the consequences have included an expensive and embarrassing lawsuit almost certain to result in a ruling that administrators acted illegally in demanding prior review.