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Student editors face suppression from readers and administrators
By Sean Green
Senior Reporter_
Two students at the University of
Central Florida were upset that
their student newspaper. The Fu
ture, did not endorse their student
government election party.
They decided to do something about
it.
Jamie Carte, The Future’s editor in
chief, said the students, who were drink
ing at the time,
learned that the
Feb. 14. 1990. is
sue contained an
editorial stance
against the politi
cal party, so they
called the campus
police and said a
streaker was run
ning through their
residence hall.
While police were searching for the
non-existent streaker, the two students
removed 7,000 copies of The Future
from campus newsstands.
Carte said the two students later
confessed to taking the papers and the
student affairs group ordered them to
penorm campus services, including
delivering the newspaper to stands.
But Carte said the students gradu
ated soon after the incident and re
ceived no other form of punishment. In
essence, she said, they got off without
any real punishment.
‘Vigilante censorship’
Carte said the 1990 event was not
the first instance of students tamper
ing with the newspaper.
In 1988, she said, members of a
fraternity put some of the newspapers
in a dumpster.
Carte called this form of vandalism
“vigilante censorship."
“The way they censor is just to take
the papers," she said. “If they don’t like
your content, they take it into their own
hands."
Carte said the act of removing the
newspapers from the stands was a
felony.
In Florida, a felony is any crime re
sulting in damage of more than $300.
Carte said the cost of producing one
issue ofThe Future, including salaries,
advertising, printing and work-hours,
was about $ 1.000.
Carte said she had tried to convince
other newspaper editors with similar
vandalism problems to join forces to
take the offenders to court.
But she said The Future was not
considering changing its free distribu
tion because of the vandalism.
“We don’t want to charge students
for newspapers by putting them in vend
ing machines," she said.
“And I’m not sure many students
would want to pay for something they
used to get free."
Personal problems
At the University of Denver, a stu
dent placed a controversial personal
advertisement in the school’s newspa
per. the Clarion.
Bill Beardslee, the Clarion’s editor,
said the advertisement, which con
tained obscene language directed at
the student’s girlfriend, ran in the third -
to-last issue of the spring 1990 semes
ter
While it contained several slander
ous and libelous remarks, he said, no
action was taken.
Then, in the last issue of the semes
ter, the same student addressed the
same girlfriend in another advertise
ment, which wa$ more offensive than
the first, Beardslee said.
After a meeting with the dean, every
Clarion staff member except Beardslee.
who was not editor at the time, was
fired and the newspaper was shut down
for a semester.
Beardslee said the advertisement and
consequent suspension of publication
had hurt the paper in several ways.
“After something like that happens,
your whole credibility is destroyed," he
said. “Nobody wants to talk to the pa
per. or write for it."
Nationwide controversy
These are only two of several in
stances of student newspapers nation
wide facing suppression after making
editorial decisions, according to Keep
ing Free Presses Free, an annual pub
lication of the College Media Advisers.
Inc.
Other examples include:
• School officials at Our Lady of Holy
Cross University in New Orleans col
lected and disposed of an issue of the
Hurricane Watch that contained an
advertisement for David Duke, who
unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate.
The officials said the school had a
policy prohibiting political advertise
ments, but student editors said no one
had informed them of such a policy
before the newspapers were destroyed.
• At Montclair State College in New
Jersey, a track coach confiscated film
from a Montclarion photography editor
after she photographed him during
practice. Later, a staff writer’s film was
exposed and camera damaged by a
campus police officer after the writer
photographed an altercation at a party.
Complaints to university officials about
the two incidents were dismissed, and
editors now are considering legal ac
tion.
• Two former editors of San
Francisco’s Hastings Law School Law
News filed suit against the school when
the California State Bar refused to ad
mit them. Both former students had
passed the state bar exam, but Hastings
did not certify their “moral fitness.’’ The
former students alleged that school
officials were using the admissions pro
cess to punish them for editorials they
had written criticizing the school. After
an investigation, the bar association
admitted the two former students, but
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nently have been damaged by school
officials’ actions.
• The student publications board of
Marquette University in Milwaukee for
bade the Marquette Tribune from tak
ing an editorial stance on abortion.
Editors of the Catholic university’s
newspaper had planned an opinion
forum with six pieces — some support
ing and some opposing abortion. To
accompany the forum, the editorial
board voted 6-1 to publish an editorial
advocating abortion rights. The stu
dent publications board allowed the
newspaper to run the opinion forum
but not the accompanying editorial.
First Amendment concerns
Mark Goodman, executive director
of the Student Press Law Center in
Washington. D.C.. said attempts to
censor the college press had become
more and more prevalent, and most of
those attempts were unconstitutional.
“There is no constitutional basis for
banning or controlling student publi
cations." Goodman said. “The idea of
an outside interest, such as college
administrators, trying to take editorial
control over these publications flies in
the face of the First Amendment."
As more attempts to control the stu
dent press are made, more cases will go
to court, Goodman said. Already, he
said, he has seen a significant increase
in cases involving control of editorial
content and the shutting down of stu
dent newspapers.
Goodman said a recent U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that gave high school ad
ministrators the right to censor the
student newspaper “trickled up" to the
college level.
One argument used by administra
tors to control student publications is
that they provide the newspapers with
funding. Goodman said.
But he rejected that argument.
“Universities are not required to give
financial aid to student newspapers,"
he said. “But once they do. that aid
does not give them the legal right to
influence editorial control."
He said editorial control could in
volve prior restraint, in which adminis
trators examined the newspaper before
it went to press and removed what they
found unfit for print. Or, he said, it
could involve post-publication censor
ship, in which administrators or others
removed newspapers from newsstands.
Public relations publications
One symptom of editorial control may
be the attempt of colleges to transform
their student newspapers into public
relations publications, Goodman said.
“Sometimes universities think their
student publications were set up for
the purpose of promoting the campus."
he said. “But that’s not what they are."
If a student newspaper becomes an
instrument of public relations.
Goodman said, its credibility is de
stroyed.
“Students will still look at a student
newspaper that prints only public rela
tions material." he said. “But they won’t
have any faith in it or trust it to accu
rately report what the administration
is doing."
Goodman said joke issues also were
fading out, partly because of stronger
attempts to censor and partly because
student Journalists were less interested
in writing them.
“Students see Joke issues as more
trouble than they are worth," he said. "I
don’t think serious Journalists are will
ing to let joke issues hurt the credibility
or possible future existence of their
papers."
