Censoring the College Press

By John K. Wilson

No expression of student ideas on a college campus is as visible or as widely read as the student newspaper. For that reason, campus newspapers are often the battleground for controversies in higher education. Issues such as crime, free expression, diversity, and much more are debated in—and sometimes provoked by—student newspapers.

Administrators play a key role in the success and the freedom of student newspapers. Often it is the administration that censors the student press, either directly by imposing control or indirectly through a faculty adviser. Administrators are also crucial in theft cases, where they can criticize or punish newspaper thieves.

In 1999, USA Today reported “increasing casualties of attempts to control student media” at both public and private colleges.(Harrison, 1999) From fired advisers to disciplined students to stolen newspapers, the freedom of the college press is too often endangered by administrators who don’t understand the law, and students who fail to appreciate the values of a free press.

However, the role of the college administration should not simply be a “hands off” defensiveness. Instead, colleges need to actively encourage better student journalism and full freedom of the press.

The Collegiate Press

At 3,600 American colleges, there are over 3,000 newspapers, almost 2,000 yearbooks, and 1,800 magazines or other publications. These total nearly 25 million copies annually, spending more than $150 million a year.(Ingelhart, 1993)

The biggest of these publications are the 103 daily student newspapers (published Monday-Friday during the school year), most of which run Associated Press stories, have annual budgets exceeding $1 million, and try to model professional journalism. But student newspapers range from daily to occasional, from official to totally independent, from mainstream to right-wing or left-wing. Administrators may have a “hands off” approach to student media, rely on journalism programs to educate students, or take an active role in assisting—or censoring—the college press.

Student newspapers at public universities occupy a unique position in the media. No other type of newspaper is free from censorship by the publisher of the paper. And no other form of media owned by public universities (such as public radio or TV stations) is given a special immunity from censorship. Courts have ruled that public colleges have more power to regulate the content of what tenured professors teach in the classroom than what students print in the campus newspaper.

The freedom of the campus press was not won easily. Throughout the history of student newspapers, administrators and others have sought to limit their freedom. And freedom is far from absolute. Many student journalists, faculty advisers, and administrators are either ignorant of the legal rights of the campus press, or prefer to ignore these restrictions.

The History of the Student Press

The source of the first campus newspaper in America is somewhat disputed, with some sources citing Dartmouth College in 1839.(Duscha and Fischer, 1973) But the Miami Student at Miami University claims to have "the oldest college newspaper in the United States, established 1826."(Peltz, 2001) At the start, student newspapers were seen as being the property of the college. Whatever freedom enjoyed by student editors was at the pleasure of the administration, and it could be withdrawn at any time.

That structure began to change in the late 1960s, when student newspapers challenged the rules, and courts defended the right to a free press at public colleges. The courts ruled that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press applied to student newspapers at public colleges.

Structurally, college newspapers are under the control of student affairs, are independent, or report to journalism departments. College Media Advisers reported in a March 2001 study that 45 percent of publications at four-year public colleges and 33 percent at four-year private colleges fall under student affairs. And 57 percent of college newspapers are funded from student fees. The Student Press Law Center notes, “the entity that controls a student newspaper’s finances often presumes it has some control over content as well.”(Who Controls, 2001)

Legally, there are three types of campus newspapers: the house organ, the institutional newspaper, and the independent newspaper (Duscha and Fischer, 1973) The house organ is a newspaper controlled by the administration, with full authority over its content. At public colleges, student newspapers legally cannot be considered house organs, and most private colleges are unwilling to restrict papers.

The institutional newspaper is the most common type. Although a registered student group or otherwise affiliated with the college, the content must remain independent. Administrators may regulate the business operations (for example, requiring professional staff or financial audits), but they cannot control the content of the paper.

The third type of newspaper, the independent one, has a separate incorporation from the college and thus is governed by its own by-laws. However, structural independence does not necessarily mean total independence. “Independent” newspapers can still receive funding or hidden subsidies such as rent-free office space, although these newspapers are often financially self-sustaining.

Censorship and Independence: the 1960s Revolution

Censorship has been a part of college newspapers since their start, but most campus newspapers remained safe by doing little to challenge the administration. The changed during the 1960s, when coarse language and political protest became a part of college newspapers, and the authorities inside and outside of the college took action. A Pennsylvania legislator threatened to withhold all money for the University of Pittsburgh in any state funds went to the “obscenities and vulgarities” in student publications. At San Francisco State College, the editor of the student newspaper was beat up over the coverage of blacks, and at Wayne State University, “black militants” took over the student newspaper.(Duscha and Fischer, 1973)

“Campus publications abound in obscene editorial and pictorial content and evidence little or no dedication to truthful and objective reporting,” declared University of California regent John Canaday, who called in the early 1970s for greater control over student newspapers and eliminating student fee support.(Duscha and Fischer, 1973, p. 23)

The University of California Regents established a committee of professional journalists to investigate what to do with the campus press. However, their 1972 recommendations offered a defense of the free campus press, emphasizing eight actions that colleges should take that still apply today:

1) make clear with statement in masthead that campus newspapers are not “official” voice of the university;

2) fiscal independence: if student fees are necessary to keep a student paper alive, a contract should insulate the newspaper from political decisions;

3) an experienced adviser and journalism seminars should advise and educate campus newspaper staffs;

4) the university should use a newsletter for official statements;

5) each fall, a professional seminar for student editors should be held;

6) journalism departments should provide advice when asked, but should not act as guardians;

7) the use of obscenities was not a major problem;

8) overall, colleges should provide good counsel and training, and protect newspapers from pre-censorship, to encourage news and editorial responsibility.(Duscha and Fischer, 1973)

Duscha and Fischer (1973) list several advantages in having an independent newspaper: more confidence from readers; “an independent publication will be more efficiently operated”; “a better place to learn about newspapering because it will be more professional”; “Students will find an independent publication a far more credible source of information.”

However, Ingelhart (1993) argues that few newspapers are truly independent, with only a small minority receiving no subsidy at all and having no one associated with the college overseeing it. Many campuses (58%) call their student newspapers independent, but of these only 13% pay rent, 16% pay utility bills, and only 10% rely solely on advertising. Only 22 student newspapers in the country are independent in America.(Campbell, 2001) While the myth of independence holds that newspapers prosper by leaving behind subsidies and oversight, in reality independence is often imposed by administrators facing budget cuts and controversial newspapers. Financially independent papers are more dependent on advertising, which tends to make them smaller and more docile. “Independence” actually serves to “rid the campus of a truly independent critical voice.”(Ingelhart, 1993, p. 19)

Independence was often used as punishment rather than protection of the press. In 1971, the Florida Alligator at the University of Florida published a list of abortion services, defying state law and the orders of president Stephen O’Connell. The editor was acquitted when the law was found unconstitutional, but O’Connell tried to bring the paper directly under control of the administration. When that failed, in 1973 O’Connell cut off funding to the paper, and ordered it off campus.(Duscha and Fischer, 1973)

At the University of Maryland at College Park, in 1970, student publications were published by the university and run by a publications board. Student fees provided 30%-40% of the Diamondback’s funding. However, the Board of Regents decided to make all publications go off campus. A student magazine, the Argus, had published a picture of student burning the American flag, sponsored a National Creative Pornography Contest, and put the names of state and university officials on a picture of a pig. In 1971, after the Diamondback ran two pages blank to protest campus censorship, put tombstones in its editorial pages to oppose the war in Vietnam, and frequently printed obscenities, the Regents made the Diamondback and its sister publications independent under a nonprofit company, Maryland Media, Inc., with a majority of its board made up of students.(Campbell, 2001)

Ironically, the Diamondback prospered financially under independence, but its success has sparked controversy. A Baltimore Sun report revealed that the Diamondback had built up a surplus of $4 million by 2001, and the general manager of Maryland Media was receiving $200,000 a year in total compensation, with a proposed raise that would bring his compensation up to $300,000 a year—more than Maryland’s president or basketball coach. The University of Maryland journalism school urged that the paper hire an editorial adviser, give scholarships to editors, and provide more news coverage with the surplus.(MacGillis and Roche, 2001a)

The Diamondback editor, Jonathan Schuler, claimed that the dean of the journalism college declared they would "do whatever was necessary to wrest control of the paper away from the students." Schuler argued that a newspaper run by the journalism school would be unwilling to challenge its bosses: “If you end up with a student newspaper controlled by the journalism school, which is essentially the University of Maryland, you're not going to get the kind of coverage you should be getting on important issues."(Campbell, 2001)

The Law and the College Press

In a series of decisions, courts have ruled that administrators cannot exert any control over student newspapers at public colleges except in very unusual circumstances. Robert O’Neil (1997) notes, “Courts have set high standards for state colleges seeking to stifle student newspapers or their editors.”(p. 127) Suppression of a newspaper requires an “overriding state interest.”

In one of the few cases limiting the college press, Norton v. Discipline Committee, 419 F.2d 195 (6^th Cir. 1969) dealt with students expelled for distributing “false, seditious and inflammatory” literature at East Tennessee State University. Courts upheld the dismissal because the pamphlets told students to “stand up and fight” and could cause substantial disruption.

However, nearly all of the legal cases defend the rights of student journalists. In Dickey v. Alabama State Board of Education, 273 F.Supp. 613 (M.D. Ala. 1967), the editor of the Troy State University student paper, printed “censored” in place of an editorial criticizing the state legislature and governor, which had been censored by the advisor and president. The president suspended him from the university for “insubordination.” A U.S. District Court ordered him reinstated as a student and declared that the rule against criticism of state officials was “unreasonable.”

In Korn v. Elkins, 317 F. Supp. 138 (1970), The Argus magazine at the University of Maryland at College Park was banned by the university from publishing an issue with a burning American flag pictured on the cover, fearing it might violate state flag desecration laws. The editors then published a blank white cover with “Censored” written on it. The court ruled that the University of Maryland could not prohibit publication of a flag burning picture.

In Channing Club v. Board of Regents of Texas Tech, 317 F.Supp. 688 (N.D.Texas 1970), Texas Tech University prohibited the distribution of the Catalyst newspaper on campus because it used “lewd, indecent, and vulgar language.” The court overruled this as a violation of equal protection because similar words could be found in newspapers and books allowed at the university.

In Trujillo v. Love, 322 F. Supp. 1266 (D. Colo. 1971), the managing editor of The Arrow at Southern Colorado State University was suspended from her position after disagreeing with the advisor about censorship. The court ordered her reinstated, despite the university’s funding of the paper, because “the state is not necessarily the unfettered master of all it creates.”

In Bazaar v. Fortune, 476 F.2d 570, 489 F.2d 225 (5^th Cir. 1973), the court ruled that four-letter words did not alone justify censorship, the funding and facilities by the University of Mississippi for the student literary magazine, Images, did not give the power to censor, and a college could not be held responsible or liable for the content of student publications, even if the magazine had a faculty advisor: “speech cannot be stifled by the state merely because it would perhaps draw an adverse reaction from the majority of people….” The court added: “The university is clearly an arm of the state and this single fact will always distinguish it from the purely private publisher as far as censorship rights are concerned."

In Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, 410 U.S. 667 (1973), a graduate student distributed an underground newspaper with the word “motherfucker” in a headline and a political cartoon showing a policeman raping the Statue of Library and the Goddess of Justice. Papish was expelled from the university for distributing a newspaper “containing forms of indecent speech.” The U.S. Supreme Court ordered her reinstated: “The mere dissemination of ideas—no matter how offensive to good taste—on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of ‘conventions of decency.’”

Prior review in particular is prohibited at public colleges. In Antonelli v. Hammond, 308 F. Supp. 1329 (D. Mass. 1970), the Fitchburg State College newspaper won a suit against the president who required prior approval of the paper by a two-person faculty advisory committee and refused to release the money for a particular issue because he disagreed with the content. The court ruled that administrators cannot require prior review and censor expression in the name of stopping obscenity.

Even if an administration tries to review a newspaper for purely quality issues, it is illegitimate. In Schiff v. Williams, 519 F.2d 257 (5^th Cir. 1975), three paid student editors of the Florida Atlantic University newspaper were fired by the president for low quality, poor grammar, misspellings, “vilification and rumor mongering,” and “immature and unsophisticated diatribes.” The court ordered their reinstatement, even if the poor quality of the paper “could embarrass, and perhaps bring some element of disrepute to the school.”

Libel and the College Press

One of the most exaggerated threats to the college press is libel, and this is often used as an excuse for prior review of a college newspaper. Ironically, many administrators who take this approach are increasing the liability of their college, because courts have ruled that colleges incur liability only if they review a newspaper before publication. The Student Press Law Center notes, “the best advice for most schools that want to protect their pocketbooks and stay out of court is to refrain from editorial decision-making and content control of student publications.” According to the SPLC, “courts have consistently said you cannot hold a public college liable for the acts of its student publications as long as the school is not censoring or exercising some other form of content control.”(Liability for, 1997)

At Ohio State University in 1992, three editors resigned and seven editors were fired by the journalism faculty for refusing to follow orders for prior review, which gave the faculty adviser the authority to review all articles for libel before publication. The Lantern published a front-page editorial condemning prior review, and some of the student journalists formed an underground newspaper, the Independent. Ohio State’s journalism faculty argued that the university must protect itself from libel by having a faculty adviser review every issue. According to faculty member Kevin Stoner, "We try to choose very responsible students to edit the newspaper; the rub comes when the students don't recognize libel."(Dodge, 1992)

At Palm Beach Atlantic College, libel was also the excuse for monitoring the Rudder at the private college. A faculty adviser read the paper, and top administrators could censor any libelous or obscene language. When a letter to the editor criticizing the college’s ban on homosexual acts was deemed obscene, the editors blocked out the words and put “censored” over it. After two student editors complained about the censorship to a local reporter, they were fired and the Rudder was shut down and replaced by a newsletter fully controlled by the college. Some of the student journalists put out an off-campus alternative newspaper, the Udder.(Dodge, 1992)

Actual libel cases are rare, and almost never won against student newspapers. In April, 1996, an administrator at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University sued the Collegiate Times for libel because the paper accidentally referred to her as the "Director of Butt Licking." The administrator alleged that it could be construed as a factual allegation that she had engaged in "a crime against nature." The state Supreme Court dismissed the suit because the phrase could not be taken seriously and was merely “rhetorical hyperbole."(Butt-licking, 1998)

In an early case, the threat of libel for colleges did exist. In Wallace v. Weiss, 372 N.Y.S.2d. 416 (Sup. Ct. 1975), Hannah Wallace sued because of “the unauthorized use of her photograph on the front cover” of a student magazine. The New York court dismissed this claim because the magazine “was distributed free of charge,” “was not a commercial venture,” and “the photograph was not used in connection with any advertising material.” However, the Court refused to dismiss a libel claim against the University of Rochester because: “The university, by furnishing and providing to the organization money, space and in lending its name, may well be responsible for the acts of the organization, at least insofar as the university has the power to exercise control. By assisting the organization in its activities, it cannot avoid responsibility by refusing to exercise control or by delegating that control to another student organization.”

However, later cases overruled this logic. In Mazart v. State, 441 N.Y.S.2d 600 (N.Y. Ct. Cl. 1981), two students at the State University of New York at Binghamton sued for libel over a false letter sent to the Pipe Dream newspaper. The letter claimed that a prank in a dorm was anti-gay, and had the two students listed as the letter-writers and “members of the gay community.” The court concluded that this was libelous, and the newspaper “acted in a grossly irresponsible manner” by not checking the source of the letter. However, the university could not be held liable for what the newspaper printed because of “the university's lack of control over the newspaper.” The New York Court of Claims ruled that even though the newspaper received student fee funding, a faculty adviser, free office space, and school credit for work on the newspaper, there was no “agency relationship” between the school and newspaper.

In Milliner v. Turner, 436 S.2d 1300 (La. App. 1983), two faculty at Southern University sued the editors of the campus newspaper for libel because editorials called them “racist” and a “proven fool.” The state appellate court overturned a trial court, ruling that the school could not be held responsible for libel.

In Lentz v. Clemson University, No. 95-CP-39-66 (S. Car. Ct. of Common Pleas, 1995), the court declared, “There is overwhelming authority across the country in support of the position that a public university which does not censor or otherwise control the content of a school-sponsored newspaper is not liable for what is published by the students in the student-run newspaper."

In McEvaddy v. City University of New York, 663 N.Y.S.2d. 4 (1995), the court dismissed any libel claim: “The presence of a faculty advisor to the paper, whose advice was nonbinding, and the financing of the paper through student activity fees dispensed by defendant, do not demonstrate such editorial control or influence over the paper by defendant as to suggest an agency relationship.”

Although the legal tradition for libel at private colleges is much more limited, one case indicates that private institutions are also exempt from newspaper libel claims if they do not control the publications. In Gallo v. Princeton University, 656 A.2d. 1267 (N.J. Super. A.D. 1995), Dominick Gallo was the manager of plumbing and heating for Princeton University, who resigned in 1989 after becoming the focus of an investigation about misuse of property. After Princeton issued a press release in the Weekly Bulletin, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly and Daily Princetonian wrote stories, Gallo sued all three. The Court ruled that administrators had a qualified privilege to report on a matter of public concern, and that statements written by reporters for “independent University publications are not attributable to Princeton and its administrators.” The SPLC recommends, “If a private school adopts a written policy that prevents school officials from exercising content control over student publications, the policy might work to protect the school from liability.”(Liability for, 1997)

While the independence of the campus media had been declared in principle by courts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there remained two major legal challenges to the freedom of the press at public colleges. The first was an effort to re-establish administrative control of student newspapers in the Hazelwood case. The second was an attempt by conservative organizations to end mandatory student fees for controversial student groups, which might have financially threatened the freedom of many campus newspapers. In both cases, courts eventually ruled in defense of the college press, but questions remain unanswered about the free press rights on college campuses.

Hazelwood’s Impact

In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating blow to student journalism by giving school authorities near-absolute authority to censor high school newspapers. Reasoning that the student newspaper represented the voice of the school, the Court ruled that public schools could exert control over the content of student newspapers.

At first, few thought that the Hazelwood decision would be applied to college newspapers. The Supreme Court noted, "We need not now decide whether the same degree of deference is appropriate with respect to school-sponsored activities at the college and university level." Not only are college students legally considered much different from high school students, but the environment of a college campus, and the traditions of academic freedom, dictated against the censorship of college newspapers.

However, Hazelwood was sometimes cited by administrators at public colleges in order to impose greater control. In the 1990s, J. Robert Giddings in the Office of the General Counsel for the University of Texas system claimed that Hazelwood applied to college newspapers, and Giddings pushed student editors to create guidelines that allow prior review and censorship of campus newspapers.(Geraghty, 1997) Because of the efforts in Texas to impose greater control, the University of Texas-EI Paso inserted a prior review clause to its handbook, and the University of Texas-Arlington gives the faculty adviser the power to delay any potentially libelous article for an unspecified time.(Wolper, 1997)

The fear about Hazelwood reached a peak with the case of Kincaid v. Gibson. In this case, federal judge John Ryan declared, "Any university that hands anything over to students ought to be closed."(Wolper, 1999)

Although Kincaid v. Gibson was ostensibly a yearbook case rather than a student newspaper case, and a “quality or work” case rather than political censorship, the facts underlying the case made it more complicated. In reality, the yearbook was seized as part of a power play by Kentucky State president Mary Smith, who was angered that Laura Cullen, adviser to both the yearbook and the newspaper, would not kill a letter to the editor which criticized the president. One day after this Cullen refused to censor the letter to the newspaper, Smith ordered the yearbook held, and Cullen was dismissed from her job and given a secretarial post for six weeks until she threatened legal action.(Wolper, 1999)

When the Kincaid decision was upheld by a three-member federal appeals court, defenders of the college press were alarmed at the prospect of a “college Hazelwood” rule. Kincaid, as one commentator put it, “threatened to radically distort the face of college journalism”(Peltz, 2001) However, the court’s decision was immediately re-heard by the entire 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled 10-3 in 2001 that freedom of the campus press must be protected and Hazelwood did not apply to college newspapers.

Shutting Down the Innovator

Although the Kincaid decision will protect the campus press from censorship, the Supreme Court has still not ruled on the question. The Kincaid ruling is influential, but not legally binding on other circuits. The next key campus press case will be Hosty v. Governors State, which will be heard by the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals in the summer of 2002. In an earlier federal district court decision in 2001, the judge rejected Governors State arguments citing Hazelwood (even after the Kincaid ruling) and refused to dismiss the case completely.

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.

Southworth and the Politics of Funding

Another major legal issue for student publications is funding, since most campus newspapers were dependent upon student fees or direct payments from colleges (ostensibly to purchase the papers read by faculty and staff). If funding could be cut off suddenly due to administrative outrage at an article, then most of the constitutional and structural protections would be meaningless. A newspaper afraid to print something because it would be damaged financially is not much better off than a newspaper that must have its stories approved in advance. (Indeed, prior review can be less restrictive because student editors might not engage in self-censorship and administrators may be unwilling to risk the negative backlash of outright censorship.)

Dependence on fees for funding can make student newspapers vulnerable to budget cuts. At the University of Northern Colorado, when administrators faced a budget crisis in 2001, they proposed cutting student fee programs $325,600, including a cut of all $74,473 allocated for the campus paper, The Mirror, which is 29 percent of the paper’s funding.(Poppen, 2001)

Courts have ruled that content-based funding cuts as well as direct censorship is prohibited. In Joyner v. Whiting, 447 F.2d 456 (4^th Cir. 1973), the president of North Carolina Central University withdrew funding from the student paper after it editorialized against integrating white students into the historically black college. The court ruled that a college cannot withhold funding or other censorship of a student newspaper: “Censorship of constitutionally protected expression cannot be imposed by suspending the editors, suppressing circulation, requiring imprimatur of controversial articles, excising repugnant materials, withdrawing financial support, or asserting any other form of censorial oversight based on the institution’s power of the purse.”

In Arrington v. Taylor, 380 F.Supp. 1348 (M.D.N.C. 1974), affirmed 526 F.2d 587 (4^th Cir. 1975); and Kania v. Fordham, 702 F.2d 475 (4^th Cir. 1983), University of North Carolina students did not want student fee money to subsidize the Daily Tar Heel. The courts found in both cases that the paper did not speak for the entire student body or inhibit other expression, and therefore student fees could not be withheld.

After attacks on the University of Minnesota Daily for a humor issue, the administration made its fee allocation refundable for students. In Stanley v. Magrath, 719 F.2d 279 (8^th Cir. 1983), the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to reduce financial support for the paper as a form of punishment.

In Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the Univ. of Virginia,515 U.S. 819 (1995), the University of Virginia refused to use student fees to pay for a Wide Awake Productions Christian student magazine because it was a religious activity that "primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality." The Supreme Court ruled, “the student publication is not a religious institution….It is instead a publication involved in a pure forum for the expression of ideas, ideas that would be both incomplete and chilled were the Constitution to be interpreted to require that state officials and courts scan the publication to ferret out views that principally manifest a belief in a divine being.”

Viewpoint neutrality is the foundation of the most important college fee funding case. In Board of Regents v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 (2000), the Supreme Court rejected the efforts of conservative groups to ban mandatory fees for controversial student organizations. However, the Court ruled that public colleges must create a viewpoint neutral mechanism for distribution of student fees.

In the follow-up case of Fry v. Thompson, a Wisconsin district judge ruled that this system must include a ban on student referenda for funding or de-funding student groups. All allocations for student groups must be done in a viewpoint-neutral manner from a common fund. In addition, the court ruled that public colleges must have an appeal process beyond students, so that administrators (and, one presumes, courts) can enforce viewpoint neutrality in funding.

While some newspapers may benefit from this legal rule (notably alternative newspapers that can now claim viewpoint discrimination for denial of funds if the official campus paper is funded), it presents the danger of arbitrary fee cuts. “The worst situation is where the student government or some sort of student fee budgetary committee determines the budget every year,” noted James Tidwell, a journalism professor at Eastern Illinois University. “You are just asking for trouble.”(Who Controls, 2001) The precise implications of Southworth are still being determined by colleges, and it will take years before the strictness of its legal requirements are finally determined.

At Clark Atlanta University, threats to the funding of the Panther led to both administrative control and self-censorship. In 2000, Dena McClurkin, an assistant editor of the Panther, noted that the paper prints mostly positive stories "to get on the administration's good side." In 1997, the administration eliminated funding for the paper after it published a critical article about toxic materials used in art classes. According to McClurkin, "We choose to censor ourselves to hold onto our money, so we're unable to write anything hard-hitting or investigative."(Reisberg, 2000).

At the University of Northern Colorado in June 2001, the board of trustees voted to approve a student government recommendation to eliminate all funding for the Mirror as part of a reduction in student fees. The newspaper claimed that it was being targeted for running editorials critical of student government.(Student Press Law Center, 6/13/01)

Funding issues also raise the question of whether administrators can monitor the budgets of student newspapers. At the University of Connecticut, the Daily Campus refused in 2002 to give financial information required of all student groups by a new Student Fee Oversight and Review Com, citing the First Amendment. Editor Daniel Drew stated: "The Daily Campus needs to remain autonomous and independent in terms of fiscal appropriation power if we are to be the same editorially. Without that we are nothing."

Until 1972, the Daily Campus received its funding from student government, but when they objected to news coverage, they told the newspaper to either print what the student government of give free space to print their version of what happened. A Daily Campus Board of Finance was created which received student fees as a separate item in the fee bill, so that the student government could not interfere with its allocation. Now, the paper risks giving up $168,000 in student fees of its $555,000 budget.(Hoyt and Foster, 2002)

Financial issues can be tricky for college newspapers. Is it possible to be editorially independent from an administration that monitors a newspaper’s financial statements? In the aftermath of Enron, college auditors may become more insistent to see any financial records of institutional newspapers, which may make the wall of independence harder to maintain.

However, so long as the financial information is purely used to detect fraud, and not to retaliate for a story or impose greater content restrictions, it is wise for college newspapers to cooperate with requests for financial data. It would be odd (and possibly illegal) for a student newspaper at a public college to demand the right to financial information about various departments and then claim an exemption from any disclosure. On the other hand, if a commercial newspaper attempts to use freedom of information laws to acquire the advertising database of a student newspaper (as the Ames Tribune tried to do in its fight with the Iowa State Daily), it becomes a matter of competitive secrecy rather than public information.

Paying the Piper? The Controversy over Advertising

Advertising is a double-edged sword for campus newspapers. On the one hand, it gives publications a measure of independence from financial control by the college. On the other hand, advertising presents its own dangers. College newspapers that depend upon a small number of apartment or bar advertisements may be reluctant to do investigative reports on unsafe buildings or underage drinking.

There is also the more subtle censorship created by market forces. In 2001, the Minnesota Daily decided to eliminate its highly-praised A&E supplement because it failed to attract enough advertising revenue, replacing it with a more conventional weekend supplement. This prompted an outcry about the newspaper sacrificing journalism for profits. Yet the Minnesota Daily is probably the largest campus newspaper in America, with $2.7 million in annual revenues and a $233,476 profit in the most recent year.(MacGillis & Roche, 2001a)

As Ingelhart (1993) argues, advertising dependency can cause student newspapers to become smaller and less willing to take risks. They must appeal heavily to advertisers, not just readers, and that often interferes with the commitment to journalism. The proportion of college papers that received advertising revenue increased from 93.5% in 1987 to 99.2% by 1996.("Making Progress”)

The only area where the freedom of the college press is more limited is in the realm of commercial speech. However, even advertising can be regulated only by legislative authorities, not administrators, and only under certain circumstances. In general, college journalists maintain full control over advertising.

In Lee v. Board of Regents of State Colleges, 441 F.2d 1257 (7^th Cir. 1971), the court ruled that a campus newspaper could not refuse to accept an editorial advertisement, but in this case it was because the college controlled the newspaper. In Mississippi Gay Alliance v. Goudelock, 536 F.2d 1073 (5^th Cir. 1976), the court upheld the right of a student newspaper at Mississippi State University to refuse an ad from a gay counseling service. In Sinn v. Daily Nebraskan, 829 F.2d 662 (8^th Cir. 1987), the court refused to order the University of Nebraska newspaper to run newspaper ads for roommates that mentioned their sexual orientation, upholding the right of editors to reject an ad.

In Texas Review Society v. Cunningham, 659 F.Supp. 1239 (W.D. Tex. 1987), a federal district court overruled a UT Austin rule preventing students from distributing papers that included paid ads, which violated university distribution rules. In Lueth v. St. Clair County Community College, 732 F.Supp. 1410 (E.D. Mich. 1990), the former editor of the student newspaper sued the college for banning ads for a nude-dancing club. The court ruled that the college failed to have “narrowly tailored” advertising guidelines to limit its regulation of advertising.

In Leeds v. Meltz, 85 F.3d 51 (2d Cir. 1996), the court upheld the right of The Brief at the City University of New York at Queens College (CUNY) law school to reject an ad from an alumnus because they feared that the ad (asking for information to “discredit” certain faculty and help sue the school) could lead to a defamation lawsuit. However, the right to receive advertising can be more limited.

Advertisements are among the most common causes for attacks on the student press. In the late 1980s, Georgetown University’s administration tried to suppress ads for an abortion rights rally.(Tenhoff, 1991) Many religious and private colleges exert heavy restrictions on advertising that opposes their values. University of Great Falls administrators banned the student newspaper from publishing an ad for Montana Family Planning Services. Although the student handbook declares that the student media "shall be free of censorship and advance approval of copy, and its editors and managers shall be free to develop their own editorial policies and news coverage," administrators at the Catholic university overruled this rule after seeing the ad.(University president, 1997)

However, public colleges also seek to limit certain advertisements in the student newspaper. Sex-oriented ads have often sparked controversy. San Diego State University’s Daily Aztec received objections from the Women's Resource Center about ads for adult entertainment clubs showing women in bikinis and using phrases such as "Nude girls," "sexxxy girls," "busty girls," "lusty girls," "wild and crazy girls," and "Rent Any Showgirl. Take One Home With You." Although the newspaper agreed to do more editing of the ads, the editor said that they could not afford to get rid of them, since the paper receives no university funding.(Consoli, 1995)

In February 2000, the Hudson Valley Community College's student newspaper, the Hudsonian, published a full-page recruiting ad for a local strip club called the Odyssey. The ad showed a bikini-clad woman posing suggestively against a wall, with "LADIES!!!" in large type at the top. The faculty adviser resigned in protest, and then student leaders shut the newspaper down because it didn’t have an adviser, and security officers locked the staff out of the paper’s office. The editor refused the demands to cancel the ad contract, and for eight days the paper was shut down until campus officials convinced the strip club owner to cancel the ad.(Hardi, 2000)

However, less explicit ads may not get much attention. An egg donor ad in UCLA's Daily Bruin offered $80,000 for a Caucasian woman with an SAT score of about 1300, and promised "extra compensation available for someone who might be especially gifted in athletics, science/mathematics or music.” A Stanford Daily ad in March 2000 offered $100,000 for eggs from a white woman under 30 with "proven college-level athletic ability preferred."(Weiss, 2001b) These ads rarely attract controversy, even though the use of racial background in hiring an egg donor might violate anti-discrimination laws.

In 1995, many campus newspapers (including University of California at Berkeley's Daily Californian, New York University's Washington Square Press, and the University of Kansas's University Daily Kansan) refused to print an ad for a CD titled “This is Offensive” with an illustration of a fist with middle finger extended.(Ad, 1995)

The Tangerine, the student newspaper at Utica College, was ordered by the college’s president not to run an advertisement for a competing college, the SUNY Institute of Technology. President Todd Hutton wrote the newspaper, “This is absolutely inexcusable. I cannot permit our student newspaper to advertise for an institution that is in direct competition with us and that could pose a major threat to our very existence.” The Tangerine has agreed to refrain from publishing ads for institutions that directly compete with Utica College. However, the newspaper ran an editorial about the issue which reprinted the ad.(N.Y. Paper, 2001)

Because commercial speech does not have the same level of protection as political speech, advertisements do not necessarily enjoy the same constitutional protections.

After former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called for a complete ban on alcohol advertisements at universities in the late 1980s, University of Scranton administrators banned all alcohol advertising in the campus newspaper.(Tenhoff, 1991) In 1988, Notre Dame banned alcohol advertising from athletic programs and student publications. Although the student newspaper, the Observer, objected to the policy, it did not fight the new regulation for fear of being shut down.(Dodge, 1990)

Alcohol ad bans were not limited to private colleges. Central Connecticut State University President Richard Judd objected to a September 2001 ad for the restaurant Elmer’s in the student newspaper, The Recorder, which declared, “How does having Sex on the Beach or an Orgasm sound?” Judd threatened to remove Elmer’s from its “blue-chip” program that allows students to use money on their campus cards at off-campus stores. However, Elmer’s decided to run advertising with its menu rather than the controversial ad, so the newspaper’s revenues were not impacted.(President not amused by sexy drink specials, 2001, p. 34)

A 1997 Pennsylvania law banned all 17,000 businesses in the state with liquor licenses from advertising alcohol in any campus publication, whether public or private. One restaurant/bar that has “spirits” in its logo was fined $400 for running an ad with the word in a campus newspaper. However, bars can advertise in commercial papers that target the young adult audience and distribute on college campuses.

The Penn at Indiana University of Pennsylvania lost $18,000, about 10 percent of its budget. State Sen. Melissa Hart, who sponsored the law, dismissed free speech concerns by saying, "Talk about free speech issues with the real press. This isn't the real press.” When the Daily Collegian at Penn State tried to protest the law by running free listings about taverns in its news pages, liquor inspectors ordered taverns not to cooperate or risk losing their licenses. (Simonich, 1999)

The Pitt News at the University of Pittsburgh sued, claiming that the ad ban cost the paper $20,000 in 1998, forcing it to cut the size of the paper and reduce its news content. Ultimately, a federal appeals court upheld the law, declaring that the Pitt News had no constitutional right to run advertisements as it chose, and the law had “nothing more than an incidental economic effect."

The Pitt News case sets a dangerous precedent for not only regulating advertising, but the content of college newspapers. If college newspapers, unlike commercial papers, can be held to special regulations by the state, then it might suggest a similar power to regulate the content of the news. If college newspapers are not “real” newspapers when it comes to advertising (where the same ads are used for both), then it is doubtful that their journalistic content will be given the same rights. The Pitt News case also threatens the independence of the press, since now college newspapers in Pennsylvania are more dependent than ever upon student fees and other advertisers.

Denying the Holocaust: the CODOH Ad

While sex, booze, and similar issues can raise controversy over ads, by far the biggest controversies at college newspapers in the past decade have involved ideological ads.

Although neo-nazi groups had placed offensive ads in student newspapers as early as 1972, the first major campaign was done by “Holocaust denial” groups which argue that there was never any attempt at genocide against Jews in Nazi Germany. According to Deborah Lipstadt (1993), a scholar who has investigated Holocaust denial groups, “their strategy was profoundly simple”: place ads in college newspapers, where the culture of academic freedom and the inexperience of student journalists would make it easier for their ideas to appear.

Bradley Smith, the head of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), tried to place a full-page ad in the Daily Nebraskan in 1986. When that was rejected, Smith moved on to smaller classified ads in the Penn State Daily Collegian and the Stanford Daily that ran for a short time until objections led to their being dropped.(Lipstadt, 1993)

However, in 1991 Smith began a massive campaign to place a full-page Holocaust “revisionism” ad in student newspapers around the country, and caused a nationwide debate about freedom of the press. At Brandeis University, 2,000 copies of the Justice newspaper were stolen after it published the ad, even with a disclaimer and the donation of the ad revenue to the Holocaust museum.(Wilson, 1995) In many cases, the advertising staff determined whether the ad would run (sometimes without awareness of its impact) without any input from the editorial staff. At the Michigan Daily, the ad staff apologized when the denial ad slipped through and was published, but the editorial staff defended its publication and said they would have run it. At Ohio State, the Lantern advertising staff rejected the ad, but then the editorial staff ran it for free as an editorial.(Lipstadt, 1993)

Smith has tried to follow-up his ads, but newspapers are now more aware and less likely to print the ad without considering it fully first. Since 1991, Smith has run ads in at least 90 college newspapers for CODOH. Smith continues to fool student newspapers by running small ads that offer $50,000 (for anyone who can achieve the unlikely goal of convincing a major TV network to run one of CODOH’s 90-minute denial videos), or ads promoting “46 Unanswered Questions About the Nazi Gas Chambers FREE On the World Wide Web.” However, Smith continues to try longer ads. On Oct. 28, 1999, Smith ran a 27-page ad supplement in the Chronicle at Hofstra University, including articles with titles like: "Gas Chamber Skepticism."(Finkelstein, 1999)

David Horowitz and the Politics of Race

A decade after Bradley Smith brought Holocaust denial to national attention with college newspaper ads, a former Marxist radical turned right-wing activist used the same technique to attack the idea of reparations for slavery.

Horowitz’s ad, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea For Blacks -- and Racist Too," was originally an article he wrote for Salon.com in July, 2000, when it attracted almost no attention. But when Horowitz purchased full-page ads in college newspapers around the country using the same words, it sparked one of the biggest controversies ever involving student newspapers.

Horowitz claims that he created the ad “because there was a conference on reparations at the University of Chicago. I wanted to publish it to coincide with the conference, because I looked at the conference and it didn't have two sides. And I believe at a university it is inappropriate to indoctrinate people. You should be educating them, which means they need to hear different sides of an argument. So, to provide a different side to the argument I placed an ad.”(Horowitz, 2001b)

Horowitz’s ad in the Chicago Maroon was made in error: this national conference on reparations was being held in Chicago, but not at the University of Chicago, where the topic of slavery reparations had never been publicly discussed or mentioned in the newspaper. While Horowitz’s Chicago ad was ignored, the student newspaper at California State University-Northridge rejected the ad. This was when Horowitz realized that he could get free publicity if college newspapers turned down his ad, and began a massive campaign to send the ad out to dozens of college papers across the country, many of whom rejected the ad.

One of the most controversial parts of Horowitz’s ad, "African-Americans have benefited from slavery," and Horowitz wondered, “Where is the gratitude of black America?” Horowitz’s attack on reparations sparked major controversies at several campuses.

At Madison, 100 demonstrators at the offices of the Badger Herald demanded the resignation of the editor and accused the newspaper of being "a racist propaganda machine." The newspaper also rejected an ad criticizing it for publishing Horowitz’s ad. At Berkeley, the Daily Californian apologized after angry protests for becoming "an inadvertent vehicle for bigotry." The UC-Davis newspaper also apologized for printing “discriminatory statements.”(Brownstein, 2001)

But the biggest controversy over the Horowitz ad occurred at Brown University, where minority students had been critical of the Brown Daily Herald for its lack of diversity. In response to the ad, protesters demanded a free page of advertising to rebut Horowitz and the donation of Horowitz’s $725 to minority student projects. When the newspaper refused, the next morning all 4,000 copies were stolen. One protester even walked into the newspaper’s office and tried to take the last bundle of the paper, an action that was later misreported on the front page of the Boston Globe as a “mob” of students threatening the staff.(Brownstein, 2001)

Protesters left flyers in place of the newspapers calling the taking of papers "a symbolic act of civil disobedience," and claiming it was not theft because the Herald is a free newspaper. Protesters also handed out stickers that read "Does the B.D.H. represent you?”(Brownstein, 2001)

One student, Natalie Lewis, declared: "I think it shows that at this university we have a hostile environment for students of color. If the paper was called the Brown Daily Conservative, there would be no problem, but it's calling itself a community paper. It's supposed to be reflecting our views."(Brownstein, 2001)

Ironically, the Herald’s decision to run the Horowitz ad may have been guided by an earlier debate over racial politics. In 2000, the Undergraduate Council of Students required the Herald to undergo a "racial audit" to determine if the editorial staff and coverage reflected the diversity of the students at Brown. The newspaper refused to go along, and lost $40,000 a year in fees, making it more dependent on advertising revenues student body and perhaps reluctant to turn down an ad.(Brownstein, 2001) In 2000, when the Brown Daily Herald sought columnists and sent invitations to campus ethnic groups, it nevertheless ended up with applications only from 34 white males and one white female.(Brownstein, 2001) Because of the Brown Daily Herald’s problem in attracting a diverse staff and support from minority groups, an offensive ad helped to spark an overreaction that led the thieves to be condemned around the country, as well as by the administration. Ironically, though, the issue of the newspaper that was stolen didn’t include Horowitz’s ad; it only had a few letters criticizing the advertisement.

Ideological Ads

While Horowitz and others blamed the “left-wing thought police” for the rejection of the anti-reparations ad, in reality it is common for campus newspapers to reject ads that are thought to offend important constituencies.

Salon columnist David Mazel (2001) decided to test the openness of conservative college newspapers by sending in a pro-choice ad that declared “God is an abortionist.” Mazel sent the ad to a dozen conservative newspapers, but found that only one out of 11 was willing to print it. The advertising manager of the Optimist at Abilene Christian University told Mazel, “we are not allowed to publish any advertisements dealing with this nature." The editor of the Bob Jones University Collegian reported "certain stipulations that would disallow such an ad to be run at all in 'The Collegian.'" The Champion, the student paper at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University reported, “we can't run something like that that doesn't go with our beliefs for the school." VMI’s campus paper rejected the ad “because of the controversial content." The ad was also rejected by Samford, Furman, Belhaven College, and Norwich University. The only newspaper that agreed to print the ad was the Hillsdale College Collegian.

Other ideological ads have been less controversial. When the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum (IWF) ran ads attacking The Vagina Monologues in 2002 at 11 college newspapers, only the Penn State Collegian turned down the ad because “it would cause too much controversy,” and they reversed the decision after the IWF issued a press release.(Morgan, 2002) A 2001 ad by IWF Independent Women's Forum ad accused "campus feminism" of being "a kind of cult" in which "students are inculcated with bizarre conspiracy theories about the 'capitalist patriarchal hegemony.”(Pollitt, 2001) When this ad, attacking 10 “myths” of feminism, was published in the Daily Bruin at the University of California at Los Angeles, students held a rally against the paper and demanded (without success) an apology and free space to counter the ad’s claims.(Mulhauser, 2001)

Nor was the rejection of a controversial ad unique to campus papers. Some commercial newspaper admitted that they, too, would have rejected the ad. The Boston Globe editorialized against the editors who rejected Horowitz’s ad, without revealing that it was simultaneously refusing to run an ad from environmentalists that criticized the Staples corporation.(Pollitt, 2001)

Horowitz himself was not exactly tolerant of opposing viewpoints. When the Daily Princetonian printed his ad, but ran an editorial in the same issue calling Horowitz “racist,” he responded by refusing to pay for his ad. Using words that others had uttered to justify rejecting his ad, Horowitz called the editorial “reckless hate speech.” Noting that the editors had decided to donate the money to the National Urban League, Horowitz declared, “the princes will not get to donate my money. The check has been stopped pending an apology.”(Horowitz, 2001)

A Solution to the Offensive Ad: Counterspeech

Editors face a serious dilemma when it comes to controversial ads. Ideological ads are different from other kinds of ads. By putting them in the paper, an editor is dramatically shifting the weight of arguments available to one side or the other. In most of the newspapers where Horowitz or Smith placed his ad, no writer would ever be given an entire page to state his or her views, and it would have been rare on any campus for a page of columns supporting reparations or the reality of the Holocaust to have ever been published. So Horowitz and Smith were purchasing a valuable commodity with his ads, something that announcements for events or pizza ads do not buy: domination of a debate. Certainly, no newspaper editor believes that the balance of views presented in a newspaper should be determined by wealth. Yet that is what these ads did.

However, rejection of an ad is not a desirable option, either. Newspapers typically accept all advertisers, and academia is a place where the free exchange of ideas is supposed to reign supreme, and bad ideas are countered by good ones, not by suppression.

The hazard of a slippery slope also exists: once one ad is rejected, what are the grounds for accepting another? At the University of Chicago, editors who had rejected the Holocaust denial ad accepted Horowitz’s ad because it was not “false” like the CODOH ad. Yet many critics could find much falsity in what Horowitz claimed, and CODOH could assert it was telling the truth. Exactly how can a newspaper editor make the distinction? Is denying the evil of slavery in America any better than denying the evil of the Holocaust?

There is, however, an option that Horowitz himself noted, “One way would have been to publish the ad and provide readers with a point-by-point refutation of its arguments.”(Horowitz, 2001) This seems to be the most logical solution to the dilemma Horowitz poses: counterspeech.

This phenomenon of counterspeech for controversial advertising can be an effective way for editors to both prevent protests and also educate readers. When the University of Michigan Daily printed nine ads from tobacco companies in 1997-98 (one of 200 college papers where U.S. Tobacco spent $5 million on advertising), the Daily also ran stories about the health hazards of tobacco on the same pages as the tobacco ads.(Reisberg, 1998b)

Counterspeech also brings praise rather than condemnation from the advocates of free speech. When the Rutgers Daily Targan ran the CODOH ad as an op-ed surrounded by three opposing op-eds and an editorial explaining their actions, the New York Times declared that “the editors thus transformed revulsion into education.” However, not everyone is thrilled by counterspeech. Lipstadt (1993) argues, “the Daily Targan had given Smith just what he wanted: they made him the other side of a debate.” However, it is possible for counterspeech to provide an analysis of the denial movement (as Lipstadt’s book does) rather than merely presenting this as an academic debate where all sides are equally valid. Moreover, if a controversial advertiser is told that they will be charged double the normal rate and a full-page ad refuting their arguments will be run on the page next to theirs, it is unlikely that they will ever want to run the ad.

In Black and White: The Diversity Problem at College Newspapers

Lack of diversity in student newspapers often is the underlying cause of many censorship cases, as with the black students at Brown who objected to the Brown Daily Herald and saw David Horowitz’s reparations ad as the last straw. A 1993 survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education of 111 student newspapers found that 102 had white editors-in-chief, 24 had all-white editorial boards, and more than half of their editorial boards were less representative of minorities than their college population.(Lederman, 1993)

In 1991, protesters attacking racist news coverage occupied the newsroom of the Daily Collegian at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. At the University of Iowa in 1993, black students filled the offices of the Daily Iowan, protesting a political cartoon compared the mob that beat a white Los Angeles truck driver to the Ku Klux Klan. Black students at Ohio State have referred to the student newspaper, the Lantern, as the "Slantern" or the "Klantern."(Lederman, 1993)

In April 1995, the Coalition for Concerned Black Students at DePaul University held a 10-day sit-in at the office of the DePaulia and stopped publication of two issues. They were protesting a Feb. 17 article about a fight at a student dance sponsored by a predominantly black student group, in which three people were injured and one student was arrested. The article quoted police reports referring to “MBs throwing chairs and trash into the crowd”—police shorthand for “male blacks,” which protesters said was insulting. The protesters complained that no one from the student group had been quoted in the story (although it did quote the faculty adviser from the group saying that they did not want to respond immediately).

Although the newspaper apologized for the story, protesters complained that the apology should have appeared on the front page, and threw copies of the DePaulia in the trash. The sit-in protesters demanded the dismissal of the editor-in-chief and the faculty adviser, sensitivity training for the 30-member staff (which included two blacks), and one page a week in the newspaper devoted to minority affairs.

DePaul president John Minogue ordered the DePaulia to halt publication, a decision that was condemned by journalists. To end the peaceful protest, Minogue agreed to hire "a highly regarded black communication specialist...to work with the DePaulia staff for the remainder of this term...to design and implement training strategies dealing with professional standards, sensitivity, recruitment of staff of color, and inclusive reporting." Although Minogue refused to fire anyone, he ordered the newspaper to devote one issue annually "to the concerns of students of color" and directed the April 21 issue be devoted entirely to coverage of the sit-in. Minogue also agreed to take no disciplinary action against the protesters, and even provided "tutorial assistance" to help sit-in participants catch up on their schoolwork.(Fitzgerald, 1995)

When administrators shut down newspapers in order to appease protesters, they often may be making up for the failure to act earlier and help prevent the problem from rising to such a dire level. Preventative action by administrators to help newspapers diversify can improve coverage of minority issues and forestall angry reactions to innocuous choices and errors by student journalists.

What Are You Laughing At? The Hazards of Humor

Not everybody enjoys a good laugh. Sometimes, there’s nothing to laugh at. Sometimes, the laugh comes at the expense of a particular group. And humor is a common reason for outrage at and even censorship of college newspapers.

Many mainstream college newspapers are attacked for their fake April Fools editions, which are a long tradition at some campuses. In 1988, a New Jersey court dismissed a libel suit by a Kean College administrator who was angered by a fake ad in the Independent which said school official could be reached at a phone sex number. The court ruled, "A parody or spoof that no reasonable person would read as a factual statement, or as anything other than a joke -- albeit a bad joke -- cannot be actionable as a defamation.”(Reisberg, 1998c)

Although legally protected, parodies can nevertheless provoke an angry response. In 1996, the University of Minnesota at Duluth Statesman did a spoof issue which included anti-gay slurs and a fake advertisement from the "Duluth White Man's Militia.” The chancellor called the issue a "despicable and blatant misuse of the responsibility of free speech" and members of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Association and the Black Student Association took 5,500 copies of the paper and demanded the editor’s resignation. The news editor and several reporters resigned.(Reisberg, 1998c)

At Mesa State College in 1996, the Criterion’s April Fools issue included sexual references and pictures, leading the college president to call it “smut” and fire the editor, who was later reinstated after protests on campus.(Reisberg, 1998c)

In Spring, 2000, President Arnold Speert of William Paterson University threatened to no longer recognize the Beacon as the student newspaper because a May satire edition, the Bacon, was racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and "antithetical to the values that are at the heart of this University." Speert said the administration would no longer advertise with the paper or grant interviews to its reporters, and might try to discourage other advertisers.(SPLC, Fall, 2000)

In 2001, “The Super-Secret Fake Hoya,” an anonymous satire of the campus newspaper distributed at Georgetown University, led President Leo O’Donovan to condemn it as “hurtful and offensive.” Georgetown developed a policy change so that anonymous publications that “target identifiable individual members of the university community may be taken from public distribution places.” But the independent Georgetown Academy offered to print the contents of any anonymous work regardless of its viewpoint.(Fake paper sparks policy review, 2001, p. 33)

Humor publications are increasingly popular. The Onion, one of the most popular free weeklies in Chicago and a well-known website which has spawned several books, began as a campus newspaper in Madison.(Peltz, 2001) The Onion frequently uses obscenities, insults, and stereotypes in its fake articles.

Cartoons, because of their visual nature and use of exaggerated features, can often anger readers. At Texas A & M, a Jan. 14, 2002 cartoon in the Battalion caused accusations of racism and led to an apology. The cartoon featured an African-American woman and her son, who holds a report card with an "F" on it. The woman says, "If you ain't careful, you gonna end up doing airport security." In response, campus groups and the local NAACP demanded that the administration monitor the newspaper's content, hire a consultant to review potentially offensive material, require staff diversity training, and increase minorities on staff and minority coverage. If the newspaper doesn’t agree, the student group wants Texas A&M to cut the Battalion's funding. Howard Jefferson, president of the Houston NAACP, declared: "The administrators can't let a campus newspaper run wild to cause controversy. They need to set some guidelines and parameters."(Stephens, 2002)

Even when cartoonists try to express anti-racist ideas, they can be done so badly that protests are the result. A comic strip in the campus newspaper by a student at Middlesex County College depicted a group of characters' being attacked in the fictional town of Hicksville for "being different." When a Hicksville woman who helps the characters escape nonetheless opines that blacks got a "free ride," another character responds, "On a slave ship." Minority student organizations held a protest rally. One participant who met with the artist that he was not trying to be racist, but was only insensitive: "If you're going to deal with something as delicate as that, your punch line has to be much more clear."(College Paper, 1999)

Oklahoma City University's student newspaper, The Campus, published an editorial cartoon by alum Rob Rogers, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist, which showed a white man wearing a Confederate-flag T-shirt, remarking that he appreciates seeing "a symbol of our Southern heritage" hanging from a flagpole: a black victim of a lynching. After some black students and community members expressed offense at the cartoon, administrators condemned it, and the newspaper’s top editor resigned.(Rardi, 2000)

In other cases, the cartoons are intentionally offensive and provocative. The Primary Source, a conservative newspaper at Tufts University, was charged with sexual harassment for the Oct. 11, 2001 issue which satirized the Student Labor Activist Movement (SLAM), an activist student group. The article referred to “well-endowed female SLAM members” and “oh-so-tight tank tops” and featured a cartoon of a woman with tight clothing and the letters “SLAM” across her chest. Iris Halpern, a student in SLAM, filed the complaint, saying that the issue was directed at her. The Committee on Student Life unanimously determined that it was not a violation of sexual harassment rules. 1,000 out of 2,700 copies of the Oct. 25 issue were stolen, and 600 copies of the Nov. 22 issue had stickers reading “imagine a campus free of sexism” put on the cover.(Tufts magazine, 2001)

After the Ohio State Lantern ran a comic strip poking fun at the women's studies department, thieves took copies and a Lantern editor reported that one of the thieves claimed that stealing newspapers was "part of her First Amendment rights.”(Leo, 2000)

Even when student editors try to be sensitive, they can miss the mark. At Syracuse University, the Feb. 11, 2002 Daily Orange included the cartoon "Posthumously" which was attacked by members of student government as racist for showing a black man (actually meant to be a man in a ski mask) breaking into the home of a white man. Some members of the Student Assembly drafted a resolution asking for a formal apology and a ban on distributing the paper on campus. The cartoon was printed one day after the Daily Orange instituted a new policy banning racist and sexist cartoons, and this cartoon had replaced another that was deemed racist. The paper is called "The Daily Oppressor" by some minority students, a name that started in April 1999 after a cartoon depicted a student leader with exaggerated, stereotypical features such as big lips.(Curreri, 2002)

In some cases, a syndicated cartoon printed widely in commercial newspapers can offend the sensibilities of a particular campus. When BYU’s Daily Universe dropped a syndicated columnist (and alum) in 1997, it was the faculty adviser who explained the decision and was part of the “management team” that made it: "If we allowed some of these things to get into print, it would distress church leaders and our audience."(Jones, 1997)

Often offensive cartoons can have consequences for the entire newspaper. In 1995, Daily Nebraskan reporters were banned from covering the football team's practices after the paper printed editorial cartoons critical of arrested athletes. Coach Tom Osburne rescinded the ban, but still refused to allow the paper to interview coaches.(Wolper, 1995)

Colby Angus Black, the editor of the Daily Texan at the University of Texas at Austin, was elected by the student body after running unopposed, but his staff voted 17-1 against him in a no-confidence vote because of his personal attacks against student leaders and what they deemed as racist views in his editorials criticizing affirmative action. In an editorial, Black refused to apologize for his views and threatened to fire staff members who opposed him. One student leader, Oscar de la Torre, filed a racial harassment complaint against Black because of a political cartoon showing him riding a horse, waving a rifle, and wearing a sombrero.(Controversy Fractures, 1997)

A cartoon in the Daily Californian shortly after the September 11 attacks showed two men in turbans, terrorist followers who declare, "We made it to paradise. Now we will meet Allah, and be fed grapes, and be serviced by 70 virgin women"—and then find themselves in hell. In response, protesters occupied the lobby of the Daily Californian offices, chanting anti-racism slogans; 17 of them were given citations for trespassing, but none were arrested. The student senate responded by proposing (and then withdrawing) a resolution asking the university to raise the rent on the Daily Californian offices. They accused the cartoon of stereotyping Arabs at a time when they were being threatened around the country. The cartoonist is a Berkeley alum, Darrin Bell, an African-American who noted, "It's usually white people who are offended by my cartoons.” But Basim Elkarra, president of the Muslim Students Union, said: “That cartoon wasn't an example of free speech. It is hate speech."(Wolper, 2001)

Everybody’s Got an Opinion

When Wayne State student Joe Fisher wrote a Feb. 26, 2002 op-ed column in the South End titled “Islam Sucks,” he probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the loud and angry reaction to his column in which he called the Muslim world “the poorest, most illiterate, backward, unhealthy, unenlightened, deprived and weakest of all the races.” Fisher began by noting, “I'm not very fond of religion,” and added: “Some religions suck more than others, though, and one of them is Islam. It's not Muslims that I dislike--I just dislike their faith.”(Fisher, 2002a)

Two days later, Fisher wrote a column “unconditionally” apologizing for what he wrote, claiming that it was “an intentional exaggeration, a twisting of information and hearsay, in order to prove a point: that people take religion too seriously.” Fisher noted, “I have been afraid to come to school because of some threatening e-mails I received.” He concluded, “If we ever want to move on as a human race, we need to ignore the people who say things like I said.”(Fisher, 2002b)

Wayne State has one of the highest concentrations of Arab-American students in the country, most of them Muslims. In response to Fisher’s column, the South End received nearly 500 letters.(Wayne State, 2002) Administrators condemned the paper, and plan to hold diversity training for the staff, hire a consultant to review the paper’s operations, and may hire a faculty adviser for the newspaper. Ben Burns, head of the journalism program at Wayne State, declared: “It seems that the administration is doing a disservice to The South End to let them run loose without any professional counsel whatsoever.”(Mullen, 2002)

Wayne State is not alone when it comes to columnists who offend readers. At Harvard, a March 19, 2001, newspaper column led 100 protesters to march to the Harvard Crimson, and denounce it for publishing an opinion piece by Justin Fong that attacked Asian-American students for what he called a culture of "self- segregation" at Harvard. Fong claimed that his article was partly intended to be a parody of Asian stereotypes, but he also felt it was a legitimate criticism of ethnic insularity among Asian students at Harvard. The editors wrote an editorial only expressing regret that the "piece was not edited more judiciously."(MacQuarrie, 2001)

At St. John’s University, the administration objected to a pro-choice column by a student in the Torch. Although the student handbook declares “the student press should be free of censorship,” administrators banned any editorials or columns deemed in opposition to Catholic doctrine: “we're not supposed to write anything opposing the Catholic church regarding abortion, contraception, or physician-assisted suicide," said Jack Flynn, news editor of the Torch.(Paper barred, 1997)

Newspapers and Beyond

While newspapers may be the most commonly censored publications because of the regular appearance and wide circulation, censorship of other types of publications is also common. Magazines and literary journals sometimes include controversial content, and yearbooks may be targeted by administrators if, as in the Kincaid case, they do not meet conventional expectations.

For more than four months, Tower Clock, the yearbook at Galludet University, has been held by administrators who apparently objected to photos of romantic activity and drinking parties in the yearbook. The administrators seized the yearbooks and changed the locks to the newspaper offices on November 15, 2001. Provost Jane Fernandes wrote to the campus, "When I reviewed the questionable material in the 2001 Tower Clock and heard how some members of the student body and the greater campus community were hurt by it, I questioned whether the decision to print it resulted in the denial of some students' rights and freedom. In my role as provost of the university, I believe that I have a moral obligation to purposefully interfere with this activity that has caused harm to some students and denied their freedom."(Galludet U., 2002)

Is the “freedom” of students protected by locking up a yearbook? The controversy at Galludet reflects the uncertain journalistic position of yearbooks, and may explain why some judges in the Kincaid case were so willing to ignore student rights. Does a yearbook document a college in an investigatory sense, or does it merely record the publicly approved photos of the positive events which happened? Of course, restraining the press is easily said than done: one student posted controversial pages from the Galludet yearbook on an independent website.

The growth in websites as sources of student opinion and information make censorship nearly impossible. So long as a student (or faculty or staff member) does not use a university-based website, there is almost nothing that a university can do prevent its appearance on the web, barring a violation of the law.

Faculty Control of the Press

Although faculty rarely instigate press censorship, faculty control is not always synonymous with freedom of the press. One example is the Daily Universe at Brigham Young University, which in 1972 was put under control of the faculty as a project of the journalism department. In reality, this means near-total control by the administration. Former reporter Brian Kagel recalls that in 1992, Provost Bruce Hafen took out a red pen and edited a story on evolution before it could appear: "Provost Hafen kept hacking away at the paragraphs, saying this science professor can't say this, and that science professor can't say that." As editor-in-chief in 1993, Kagel ignored a national story about six scholars who were excommunicated for disagreeing with church authorities: “I knew we couldn't publish anything. So I didn't even bother to bring it up." The cartoonist was prohibited from drawing a caricature of the president, Rex Lee; according to Brent Harker, the university's assistant director of public communications, Lee "sees himself as the publisher" and monitors the pages closely. In 1993, a student reporter was banned from the editorial page for praising faculty members who participated in an anti-nuclear protest in Nevada.

In 1994, administrators objected to an advertising insert from Beyond the Wall (which sells promotional posters, including condoms and pictures of scantily dressed models). They ordered the editors to go around campus removing the insert. The administration wrote the unsigned editorial apologizing for the ad which appeared on the front page of the next day’s paper. An alternative newspaper, the Student Review, was moved off-campus when the administration banned them from meeting on campus.(Wolper, 1994)

When publications are run through journalism departments, faculty can serve as censors. John Burks, chair of the journalism department at San Francisco State University, confiscated hundreds of copies of the Dec. 13, 2001 [X]press magazine because it had dildos on the cover. "This was about what the public will and will not stand for," Burks said. "Students didn't go to an adult bookstore and ask for this, they got it by walking through the student union.” After faculty voted to allow the issue to be released, Burks returned it to racks three days later. However, Burks said that he will not hesitate to seize future issues if they are controversial, even though departmental policy declares, "the faculty gives editorial control to the students, with the final decision-making in the hands of the editor-in-chief." (Student Press Law Center, 12/21/01) Control by journalism departments may be no better than control by the administration, particularly if journalism faculty try to censor or use prior review of a newspaper in order to improve its image.

Student Government Control of the Press

Because college newspapers are often funded and formally controlled by colleges, student government officials often feel entitled to use the student newspaper for their own devices, or censor it when the news being told does not satisfy them.

In 2001, the student senate at Northwestern State University in Louisiana tried to dismiss the editor of the student newspaper, The Current Sauce, for refusing to print the minutes of the senate meetings as required. The student government president vetoed the dismissal and a rule requiring the newspaper to tape record all of the meetings.(Editor Narrowly, 2001)

The former editor of the Georgia State University student newspaper, The Signal, was banned in 2001 from participating in any student organization until January 2002, because he did not print certain letters to the editor.(One Editor, 2001)

St. Cloud State University’s student government passed a rule on Nov. 1, 2001, requiring the filing of a conduct code violation against any student-media organization that uses American Indian nicknames and logos in its stories. However, at the request of an administrator, the rule was rescinded a week later.(Indian Mascot, 2001)

At Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2001, student senators stole hundreds of copies of the Wheaton Wire, claiming that they had a right to do so because they provided funding to the paper. When editors made a formal complaint about the thefts, the student government conducted an audit of the newspaper’s funding.(Who Controls, 2001)

Student government officials are often involved in newspaper thefts, especially when endorsements of SG candidates are made. At Wichita State University, student government representatives openly admitted to taking 3,000 copies of The Sunflower in February, 2001 in an attempt to prove that too many copies were printed. The university disciplined those responsible.(Some thieves, 2001) The student government was accused of stealing 750 copies of the Feb. 21, 2001 issue of the Gamecock at the University of South Carolina. The administration told the paper it refused to prosecute because most of the newspapers were found in trash bins and returned for distribution.(Some thieves, 2001) Nine candidates in a student government election stole 2,000 copies of the Nov. 14, 2001 issues of the Daily Lobo at the University of New Mexico, inserting a flier for their political party and then distributing it around campus. The candidates apologized for the “inconvenience” but defended their actions because the newspaper is free. The students were found guilty of violating election procedures and ordered to pay a fine of $85.50 each.(Thieves swipe, 2001)

Student government control over campus newspapers is a dangerous policy because one important role for the student press is to serve as a watchdog for what student government does. Without some insulation from control by student government, college newspapers may be unwilling to investigate abuses of office.

Censorship by Administrators

One of the most frequent censors of the college press is the administration. Administrators are particularly fond of seizing newspapers when prospective students and their parents are visiting campus. At Albright College in 1999, administrators took 1,000 copies of the campus paper, claiming that it might subject the college to copyright liability because it reprinted articles from a local newspaper. Editors suspected that the action was to conceal the front page news about Albright’s poor rankings before an open house, since the paper had permission to reprint the articles and had done so for years.(Fitzgerald, 2000)

At Iowa Western Community College, the president shut down the Western Chronicle in May 1998 because of concerns about poor quality and spelling mistakes. In response to pressure, the president announced plans to help expand the journalism program to sustain a better newspaper.(Clayton, 1999)

Lawrence Biondi, president of St. Louis University, took control of the process of appointing the editor of the student newspaper after the University News criticized Biondi's decision to sell the SLU hospital.(Allen, 1998)

At Erie Community College, three self-governed campus newspapers were closed in April 1999 by the board of trustees. The college refused to allow a journalism club on campus that published an independent student paper, the Downtown Student Voice, funded by sponsors and subscriptions. The editors filed a lawsuit claiming that the students and faculty advisers were "subjected to intimidation, harassment and threats with respect to the content of a number of the pre-April 1999 publications" and claims that the college "further interfered with in their activities by acts such as disappearance of newspapers after publication and before distribution." Finally, the editors claim that "faculty members were directed or ordered by some defendants directly, or through defendants' representatives, not to buy subscriptions to the newspaper."(Brady, 2000)

In May, 2001, at West Chester University, three staff members of the Quad were charged with disorderly conduct, academic misconduct, dishonesty and failure to comply. The staffer investigated a tip that students could register early by changing one character in the online system’s web address. Although they informed university officials about the flaw and claim that they registered only to test the system and later removed the classes, they were given the same punishment as other students who used the flaw to register early: placed on disciplinary probation, required to write a three-page paper, and forced to re-register for classes in the fall. The administration said they hoped that punishment taught the student journalists a lesson about "responsible newsgathering techniques." In addition, 5,000 copies of the issue discussing possible penalties for the incident were stolen.(Student Press Law Center, 6/4/01)

Administrators are a major source of censorship of the college press, and some of the cases—such as the shutdown of the Innovator at Governors State University—pose the most serious threat to the free press. Administrators have a wide range of tools—ranging from direct censorship to punishing faculty advisors to penalizing students—to repress student speech in publications.

At Jacksonville University in 1996, administrators went over the head of the student media board and fired editor Angie Koury and faculty adviser Marc Charisse after the student newspaper published a photo of a male beauty pageant during homecoming. One contestant was wearing only a strategically placed sock, and another held an inflatable rubber doll.(Editor, adviser, 1997)

At the University of Miami, law student David Scott in 1995 anonymously received private admissions information showing lower standards for African-American students entering the law school. Although Scott said the law school newspaper, Res Ipsa Loquitur, never planned to release any individual names or private data, a “honor court” disciplined him for having the data and failing to assist with the investigation into how it was taken. Scott was banned from writing for the newspaper or participating in any other student activities.(Law student, 1996)

In 1996 at St. Ambrose University, for an article about a computer lab supervisor who made Internet porn available, the campus newspaper printed some pictures of the porn, with black bars. After deciding not to suspend the paper, administrators created new guidelines that require the faculty adviser to review all editorials for content and tone, and to consult with top administrators about any controversial content before publication.(Newspaper faces, 1997)

In 1996, four top editors of the Logos at the University of the Incarnate Word quit in a protest over censorship. Administrators had ordered them not to print the name of a former employee who had been accused of sexual harassment. The editors planned to create an underground paper in response.(Editors quit, 1997)

In 1996 at the College of the Ozarks, a student who tried to start an unofficial paper claimed he was kicked out of school. The administration accused the editor of trying to sell ads by mentioning the name of the college, and contacted the paper’s advertisers to ask them to withdraw their ads. According to one administrator, “at a private university, an unrecognized student publication can't invoke the school's name to sell ads, and we don't have to allow it to be distributed on campus."(Unofficial paper, 1997)

On Feb. 23, 2001, Portland State University officials padlocked the door of The Rearguard, an alternative student publication, after discovering the paper had decided to pursue an investigative story involving a box of six-year-old university confidential files labeled "to be destroyed" that an unknown individual had left in front of the publication's office. Campus police followed the editor around campus for two hours and threatened him until he agreed to turn over the box.

Publications boards can also act to remove editors and censor newspapers. In 1999, the Auburn University publications board censured and threatened to fire the editor of The Auburn Plainsman, for running critical pieces about a trustee accused of using his money and influence to force the resignation of the football coach. The board retracted its threat after the Alabama Press Association warned it might be liable for violating First Amendment rights of the newspaper.(Board retracts, 1999) At Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, the entire staff of The Exponent was fired by a student-run publications board which included members of student government.(Harrison, 1999)

In 1996, the Daily Evergreen at Washington State University ran an issue with blank pages except for ads and a front-page editorial accusing the general manager, Bob Hilliard, of censorship. Hilliard, a university employee, had blocked publication of news stories and asked them to delay a story on the search for a new provost for three days because it might disrupt the search.(Journalist, 1996)

The Scapegoat: Faculty Advisers

Perhaps the most vulnerable faculty job in academia is the faculty adviser to a student newspaper. This is particularly true at private and two-year colleges, where advisers are often penalized for what gets printed in the student newspaper.

The situation has become so dire that the College Media Advisers in 1998 established a new policy to investigate and censure institutions that violate the rights of advisers: “The stories of advisers being punished, removed, reassigned and otherwise maligned at the hands of college and university administrators and student government officials are all too frequent.” The investigative team was quickly overwhelmed with requests and had to expand its investigators.(Corrigan, 1999)

In a 1991 survey of 233 newspaper advisers, 69.1% of advisers were paid entirely by the college, and just 17% not paid by the institution. 34.1% of these newspapers received some administrative funding. Among advisers, 53.3% said news selection was “strongly not tied” to administrative funding, although there was a closer link at many private colleges: 3.2% of advisers (9% at private colleges) saw administrative funding and news selection as “strongly tied” and 9% (10.7% at private colleges) as “somewhat tied.”(Bodle, 1994)

Among advisers, 5.2% of all respondents (but 10.7% of those at two-year colleges) reported “job dismissal threatened due to news story” while an additional 15.2% (19.7% at two-year colleges) reported being “pressured strongly, but never threatened.” The threat at two-year colleges may be because traditions of tenure are weaker, the colleges are smaller, or the tradition of an independent campus press is weaker than at four-year colleges. Also, 14.2% newspaper advisers were asked not to publish news items; 2.1% of advisers at public institutions reported complying with an administration’s request not to publish a news item, compared to 8.9% at private institutions.(Bodle, 1994)

The power of advertisers is much weaker. According to a 1991 survey of advisers, 94.3% of newspapers received some advertising money. Only 5.7% of advisers had been asked to withhold a news story by an advertiser, and none complied. Although this suggests little influence by advertisers, it is possible that advisers were not aware of some cases of self-censorship. In addition, 17.9% of advisers had been asked by an advertiser to place favorable news in the paper, and 4.9% complied, suggesting that advisers were willing to interfere with the editorial process to create positive images of advertisers.(Bodle, 1994)

The College Media Advisers professional code (Revised 11/92) declares: “Student media must be free from all forms of external interference designed to regulate its content, including confiscation of its products or broadcasts; suspension of publication or transmission; academic personal or budgetary sanctions; arbitrary removal of staff members or faculty; or threats to the existence of student publications or broadcast outlets.”

The code notes: “Faculty, staff and other non-students who assume advisery roles with student media must remain aware of their obligation to defend and teach without censoring, editing, directing or producing.” Despite the legal limits on public colleges, and the libel liability incurred if prior review by a college employee exists at any newspaper, prior review occurs at 39% of newspapers and 43% of yearbooks, with faculty advisers being the most common source.(Ingelhart, 1993)

Corrigan (1999) reports that “On campuses across the country, student newspapers are under fire from unhappy university presidents and boards of trustees” and “the perennial scapegoats for all this outrage are lowly college newspaper advisers.” According to Corrigan, “College advisers can offer guidance to student journalists, but they cannot, and should not, be official censors of the student press.”

In 1999, former faculty adviser Shawn Murphy noted in a Chronicle of Higher Education online forum, “Forced by administrators to submit my letter of resignation for what I am convinced was my refusal to edit what they termed ‘bad news’ from the pages of the student newspaper, I was left dismayed. From an educational and First Amendment standpoint I had done everything right, but from the standpoints of these administrators I wronged the university by allowing students to print a news story that they considered unflattering and misrepresentative of that academic institution. Stubbornly, I stood my ground, and I paid the price.”(7/15/99)

When Joyce Prock, adviser for the Pan American at the University of Texas-Pan American for 15 years and the 1993 Texas Intercollegiate Adviser of the Year, resisted rule changes to add prior review restraints and fire any editor accused of libel, she was downsized out of her job in 1996.(Wolper, 1997) David Waltz, editor of the Pan American, quit in 1997 after the new faculty adviser put an ad in place of an article without the editor’s approval. Waltz was also protesting the university’s decision to allow the faculty adviser to delay publishing up to 48 hours any article considered potentially libelous.(Geraghty, 1997)

William Lawbaugh, a professor at Mount St. Mary’s College, was denied a pay raise for faculty in 2000 because he refused to exercise prior review as faculty adviser to the Mountain Echo. In Oct. 2001, Lawbaugh’s $4,000 raise was finally restored, but the college has hired an outside consultant to investigate Lawbaugh’s advising and enforce “appropriate respect and loyalty to Mount St. Mary’s College.”(Embattled adviser, 2001)

Faculty advisers often find themselves caught in the middle between administrators who want positive coverage, and students who want to be completely unrestrained. An untenured faculty adviser was fired after the student newspaper's aggressive crime stories angered the president, and says he would never be an adviser again without having tenure.(Garneau, 1995b)

Chris Ransick reported being fired after 10 years as newspaper adviser at Arapahoe Community College in because he was “absolutely unwilling to perform prior review of any kind.”

Barbara Lach-Smith was fired by Central Missouri State University in June 2000 after the Muleskinner published stories about unusual benefits for the outgoing president and his wife, which prompted the state auditor to investigate and “improper compensation and perquisites.” The new president ordered her job reclassified as a tenure-track position, and Lach-Smith was never interviewed for the job.

John Schmitt’s contract at Fort Valley State University in Georgia was not renewed in 1998 after The Peachite’s award-winning stories criticized administrators. The College Media Advisers voted to censure Fort Valley State.

In 1999, after the Voice at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania wrote an article attacking the journalism department, the department removed the faculty adviser until it reviewed "quality and liability issues."(Green, 1999)

Garrett Boatman at Essex County College lost his job as associate director of student life and activities because he refused to edit the student newspaper. Zach Yamba, president of the college, wrote to Boatman: "That paper represents all of us, and when there are obvious grammatical errors, people wonder what kind of school this is…Obviously you regard these concerns as some type of infringement of the freedom of the press or student rights. If they are, then I wonder why we need a staff adviser. Clearly, we don't need one." Boatman’s job was eliminated a month later.(Reisberg, 1998)

Emanuel Hughley, Jr., was fired as faculty adviser to the High Point paper at Cuyahoga Community College because he refused to proofread the newspaper and administrators were upset by errors such as misspelling the president’s name.(Reisberg, 1998)

A 1995 survey by the College Media Advisers found that only one-third of faculty advisers hold tenure-track positions, and less than half of those are tenured. Advisers are commonly rejected for tenure, fail to have their contracts removed, or lose their positions in restructuring.(Green, 1999)

Faculty advisers, unlike student editors, are directly accountable to the administration, which makes them more vulnerable to retaliation. Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, noted: "Because the courts have been pretty protective of students' free-press rights, college and university officials have begun to look for other means to get at the student media to try to silence them.”(Reisberg, 1998)

Censorship by Students: Theft of Free Newspapers

While administrators pose the most severe threat to freedom of the press by censoring or even shutting down newspapers, individual students angered by an article also have found a way to express their outrage: theft.

As Nat Hentoff noted in the 1990s, “an epidemic of stealing and sometimes burning college newspapers struck at a number of campuses.”(Hentoff, 1997b) Theft of college papers has increased dramatically in the last decade, according to the Washington-based Student Press Law Center, which advises high school and college papers on their First Amendment rights. Before a high-profile case of paper theft in 1993 at the University of Pennsylvania, there were about a half-dozen incidents of theft per year. Since then, the number has ranged from a dozen to as many as 40 in an academic year.(Campbell and Paul, 2001)

Today, the problem of the theft is the worst ever witnessed by the St