View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Dayton University of Dayton eCommons Educational Leadership Faculty Publications Department of Educational Leadership 2013 Student Newspapers at Public Colleges and Universities: Lessons from the United States Charles J. Russo University of Dayton, [email protected] Terry L. Hapney Marshall University Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/eda_fac_pub Part of the Higher Education Commons eCommons Citation Russo, Charles J. and Hapney, Terry L., "Student Newspapers at Public Colleges and Universities: Lessons from the United States" (2013). Educational Leadership Faculty Publications. 158. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/eda_fac_pub/158 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Educational Leadership at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Leadership Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Student Newspapers at Public Colleges and Universities: Lessons from the United States TERRY L HAPNEY AND CHARLES J RUSSO* Introduction members of their campus communities and as preparation grounds for future journalists.4 An on-campus activity of enduring interest in the Against this background, the remainder of this United States1 that is present elsewhere in the article is divided into three major sections. The first English-speaking world,2 but that has yet to yield part examines the nature of student newspapers and reported litigation or academic writing in Great related issues while the second examines key Britain,3 concerns free speech issues associated litigation involving these publications in public with student newspapers in higher education. institutions; these parts of the article focus on Student newspapers have long occupied a state-funded institutions in the United States insofar significant role in their dual functions of informing as the protections afforded by the First Amendment with regard to freedom of speech and expression are inapplicable in non-public, or private, * Terry L Hapney, Jr, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the institutions where most rights are contractual in W Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University in Huntington, nature. The final portion of the article offers West Virginia; Charles J Russo, JD, EdD, is the Panzer suggestions particularly for readers who work in Chair of Education and Director of Doctoral Studies in the and with tertiary institutions involving student School of Education and Allied Professions and Adjunct journalists. The article rounds out with a brief Professor in the School of Law at the University of Dayton conclusion. in Dayton, Ohio. 1 The first student newspaper in American higher education, The Dartmouth was created at Dartmouth Nature of Student Newspapers College in 1799. According to its website, The Dartmouth is ‘an independent, nonprofit corporation chartered in the The First Amendment state of New Hampshire. All editorial and business According to the relevant part of the First decisions are made by the students without any Amendment to the United States Constitution, interference from the College’: http://thedartmouth.com/ about. By the late 1800s, student newspapers made such ‘Congress shall make no law...abridging the an impact that college journalism was labeled as a freedom of speech or of the press …’5 It is by particularly American institution. For apparently the earliest book on the topic, see JF McClure, History of American College Journalism (McClure, 1883). 4 In 1869, under the direction of the former Confederate 2 Student newspapers are popular, for example, in Australia. General, Robert E Lee, President of Washington College, See, eg On Dit: University of Adelaide Student now Washington & Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, Newspaper, http://www.sensational-adelaide.com/forum/ introduced the forerunner of professional preparation for viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1560; Farrago, founded at journalists. In 1878, the University of Missouri at Melbourne University in 1925, http:// Columbia offered journalism classes; the University of union.unimelb.edu.au/farrago. See also Australia’s Student Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business followed suit Media Directory, http://studentmedia.com.au/for in 1893. Robert W Desmond, Professional Training of comprehensive information about student newspapers in Journalists (UNESCO, 1949); Albert A Sutton, Education Australia. for journalism in the United States from its beginning to 3 For a discussion of related issues involving speech codes 1940 (Northwestern University, 1945). rather than student newspapers, see GR Evans, ‘Campus 5 US Const amend I. Although a discussion of its speech codes required by the Education (No 2) Act 1986: application is beyond the scope of this paper, freedom of a satisfactory basis for addressing today’s needs,’ (2010) expression in Great Britain is covered by Art 10 of the Ed Law 95. European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights 114 [2013] EDUCATION LAW JOURNAL design that freedom of speech is among the first of Conflicts Between Administrators and Student the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Free Journalists speech is perhaps the most cherished right enjoyed As noted, student newspapers play an important by Americans. Thomas Jefferson’s words ring as role as they report news, publish the opinions and true today as when he penned them in 1786: ‘Our discussions of members of campus communities, liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and and may print advertisements of interest to students, 6 that cannot be limited without being lost.’ faculty members, and others on their campuses.11 Jefferson summed up his opinion of the Budding journalists can improve their skills if they press–government relationship: ‘Were it left to me can enjoy the freedom needed to work as to decide whether we should have a government independent professionals but controversies arise without newspapers or newspapers without a when officials who do not approve of their government, I should not hesitate to prefer the reporting attempt to limit student expression.12 latter.’7 Under the First Amendment Americans The litigation reveals administrators in higher have news media outlets that are largely unfettered education are of utmost importance in the success from governmental interference: ‘[t]here is nothing and freedom of student newspapers on the more important to the journalism business than campuses of American public institutions of higher freedom of the press – the right guaranteed us by learning. In most instances conflicts arise when the writers of the Constitution at this country’s administrators limit student expression directly by founding.’8 attempting to impose controls such as demanding As a measure of its historical significance in the prior review or more subtly by limiting funding for United States, other than the press no private publications, issues that are discussed in more organisation ‘is specifically mentioned in the Bill of detail below. In addition, when student papers are stolen, administrators can step in to punish Rights. This places the press and its problems in a perpetrators.13 special file.’9 The same ‘special file’ could apply to Disputes arise over censorship when campus the approximately 1,600 college and university officials treat faculty advisors as vehicles by which student newspapers in the United States,10 all of to restrain what student journalists can publish or to which seek the same freedom of press and order them to delete materials deemed expression rights as shared by their professional unacceptable.14 While campus administrators lack counterparts. Even so, student press involves an the authority as publishers of professional inherent tension as campus journalists yearn to act newspapers who can control, or censor, the content as watchdogs reporting on people, events, and of the publications they manage,15 nothing prevents programs at their schools free from administrative control but may lose some of their independence because they depend on institutional funding to 11 JW Click, Governing College Student Publications operate. (National Council of College Publications Advisers, 1980). 12 Louis E Ingelhart, Student Publications: Legalities, Governance, and Operation (Iowa State University Press, and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 which was brought into 1993). domestic law the Human Rights Act 1998. 13 John K Wilson, ‘Censoring the Student Press’ 2005, http:// 6 Harold L Ickes, Freedom of the Press Today A Clinical www.ilaaup.org/news/illinoisacademe/2004_fall/ Examination by 28 Specialists (The Vanguard Press, censoring the student press.doc. 1941), at p 65. 14 See Antonelli v Hammond, 308 F Supp 1329, 1332 (D 7 Ibid at pp 103–104. Mass 1970) (enjoining the president of a public college from creating a faculty advisory committee to evaluate 8 Stephen J Humes, How to Run a Student Newspaper what could be published in the student newspaper as (Humes Communications, 1989), at p 102. whether it was ‘responsible freedom of press’ or obscene). 9 Ickes, op cit n 6, at p 3. 15 Bazaar v Fortune, 476 F 2d 570 (5th Cir 1973), cert 10 Ibid. denied, 416 US 995 (1974) (establishing guidelines [2013] EDUCATION LAW JOURNAL 115 them from imprinting disclaimers on publications to News sources, often institutional administrators, ensure that readers