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Hosty decision affects student papers

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Also by Sarah Howard:

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Hosty decision affects student papers (September 7, 2005)
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by Sarah Howard

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Rarely do students concern themselves with 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions. The pressures of school, distractions of social lives and whirlwind of activity in Madison leave little time to consider the implications of recent court opinions. However, if the 7th Circuit continues to hear cases like Hosty v. Carter, that blissful ignorance will become entirely inappropriate, even impossible. Students at many Wisconsin schools may soon have to join the ranks of their peers at Illinois universities who have suddenly become conscious of the court’s power to disrupt their daily lives.

Why must students incorporate judicial decisions into the jurisdiction of their daily interest? Because the court has recently adopted students into its jurisdiction with its decision in Hosty. In this case, the court, whose jurisdiction spans Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois, recently heard arguments on behalf of both collegiate journalists at Governors State University in Illinois and their Dean of Student Affairs and Services, Patricia Carter. The dispute concerned the student body at Governors State, but the decision will affect students throughout the 7th’s jurisdiction.

Student editors at Governors State were outraged in 2001 with Dean Carter’s demand they remove articles attacking her credibility. If the paper didn’t agree, it would be denied funding. The students, including Innovator reporter Margaret Hosty, and other journalism organizations quickly filed suit, charging Carter’s actions violated their First Amendment right to free speech. Previously, Dean Carter would have lost her suit based on precedent set by the 1988 case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. In Hazelwood, the court held schools could censure the content of high school newspapers because they had a compelling interest to protect young students from inappropriate content. In a footnote to the decision, college newspapers were spared as the court refused to extend its decision to all student publications, perhaps in hopes of avoiding the controversy that is now stewing across its jurisdiction. With the Hosty v. Carter decision, that loophole has been closed, and college newspapers can no longer expect to slip through speech restrictions.

Constitutional scholars are probably not shocked by the court’s decision. Funding has long been considered a form of speech. Because Governors State provided financial support for its student newspaper, it was constitutionally justified in regulating the speech the paper provided. From a business standpoint, this makes complete sense — who would pay to have him or herself criticized in front of thousands of shareholders or potential customers? However, simply reducing this issue to one of economics and constitutionality is setting the bar at its lowest notch.

There are countless situations where financial empowerment allows one to do something, but restraint is exercised because of a commitment to ethics and the pursuit of social good. This is one of those times. Just like all other journalistic organizations, student newspapers are an essential institution in a healthy democratic population. The students deserve a free flow of information, and Wisconsin journalists-in-training must have the opportunity to provide it. Unfortunately, this system does not exist for free.

We are lucky to have a healthy commercial sector in Madison that buys advertising space in student newspapers. As a result, the student press maintains a level of independence and will remain immune from institutional censorship. Unfortunately for readers elsewhere, many college papers cite university funding as their financial life source. Consequently, their news coverage and editorial boards will be subjected to the censorship discretion of deans and other university faculty.

Besides completely removing important content from this student forum, the delay in reporting could cause salient issues to expire right under the noses of students who think they are gaining prompt and timely information — a tenet of good journalism.

Moreover, many colleges and universities treat their student newspapers as a mechanism for learning about real-life journalism practices and professions. However, the college newsroom of today may become more of a university PR print shop, where content is subjected to extensive editing, cropping and reshaping before it becomes available to its reading public. If this does occur, the papers will face an endemic crisis of legitimacy. Not only will readership drop, but interest in journalism as a career path will deteriorate as students at these universities find themselves without a real medium through which to speak their minds.

Though this decision is firmly grounded in constitutional logic, students and university faculty deserve and should demand more from both their administrations and their student presses. A co-authored, signed agreement or public statement from both parties could help to alleviate the threat from any of the aforementioned issues and ensure that the student press maintains its prestigious and essential place in student life.

Sarah Howard (smhoward@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

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Anonymous (September 7, 2005 @ 2:51pm):

I'm a journalism student at OU. We were sent this column via e-mail from our prof. Very well done, with clear writing and good research. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, thank you.

Robbie Kyle

Anonymous (September 13, 2005 @ 9:23am):

Way to go girl!!!

What are the responsibilities of the editorial staff and faculity in shaping the journaiistic styles of the students? and is there a Pulitzer prize for student writers??

roger kroth
New Mexico

Anonymous (October 12, 2005 @ 7:52am):

Greetings to you, whomever you might be.

My name is Margaret L. Hosty, and I am the titular plaintiff in the matter of Hosty v. Carter, which now has a petition on file with The Supreme Court of the United States, in which my co-plaintiffs and I are asking the superior court to overturn an Orwellian decision which effectively eviscerates First Amendment freedoms for adult students and journalists, in that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit preposterously has ruled that adults have no more rights than do children when at school. I have gleaned your name from a list of journalists interested in FOI or First Amendment issues, or from the Society of Professional Journalists web site, and I have remembered to include any reporters with whom I have spoken in the past having shown an interest in the case when it was in the lower courts.

I am urgently requesting that you sign the petition I have created at the web address of http://new.PetitionOnline.com/SPJPlea1/petition.html ; attached herein is a letter which explains in greater detail why you should lend your support to and voice your concern as regards the request made in said petition. In a nutshell, the SPJ has determined to honor Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan with a "Sunshine Award," despite the fact that Madigan was the one who strenuously petitioned that the restrictive parameters of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlemeir extend to adult students, which has resulted in a court decision which has determined that there is no distinction between colleges and kindergartens when it comes to the exercise of First Amendment freedoms, based solely on the presence of subsidy.

The SPJ intends to honor Madigan later this month (mid-October 2005), so your expedient response is respectfully requested by yours truly; please send the SPJ individuals responsible for the decision the message that, as a member of the community whose interests it claims to serve, this is not acceptable behavior. Make no mistake about it; when it comes to First Amendment rights, this is war, and the SPJ has attempted to assume the role of a double agent, in that it first condemned Madigan for her legal argument, and now praises the same offending individual for some other alleged propriety. In war, we don't give medals to someone who defends one of his fellow troops, but then murders another of our soldiers in his place; no soldier could rest easy with a known Benedict Arnold in his or her barracks, and if the troops knew of the duplicitous conduct, assuredly, they would out the traitor.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION, and out the SPJ traitors for who they really are, so that the organization itself does not suffer as a whole. Famed activist Saul D. Alinsky had once written, "Action and articulation are one and the same, as are silence and surrender." Never surrender your First Amendment freedoms, and please lend your support to the effort to revoke Madigan's "Sunshine Award".

Cordially yours,
Margaret L. Hosty

Revoke SPJ Sunshine Award to Illinois Attorney General

Please sign the online petition at:

http://new.petitiononline.com/SPJPlea1/petition.html

Rebelyell5877@yahoo.com
www.myspace.com/freedom_of_speech