California Protects Student Press
By Leigh A. Neithardt
In August, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill prohibiting censorship of college presses by administrators. California is the first state in the country to enact such a law. State assembly member Leland Yee authored the bill, which amends the state’s education code.
“College journalists deserve the same protections as any other journalist. Allowing a school administration to censor is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog and bring sunshine to the actions of school administrators,” Yee said in a press release.
The impetus for the bill was a 2005 ruling in Hosty v. Carter by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2003, editors at The Innovator, the student-run paper at Governors State University in Illinois, argued that administrators could not dictate the paper’s contents. Dean Patricia Carter contended that she had the right to review and censor the publication before it went to press. A three-judge panel agreed with the students’ contention that their First Amendment rights were being violated.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision last year, citing a 1988 Supreme Court ruling in a similar case, Hazelwood District v. Kuhlmeier, which supported the right of high school officials to authorize content in a student-run newspaper. Shortly after the appeals court decision was handed down, California State University’s general counsel wrote a memo to the university presidents saying that “the case appears to signal that CSU campuses may have more latitude than previously believed to censor the content of subsidized student newspapers,” according to the Student Press Law Center.
On January 1, 2007, when California’s new law takes effect, that will no longer be possible. In a press release, Schwarzenegger said, “Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our democracy. Students working on college newspapers deserve the same rights afforded to every other student journalist.”
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