Freedom of speech may be limited at colleges and universities in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana if a court rules against three Illinois student journalists.
Hosty v. Carter, will be heard by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Jan. 7.
The case originated in fall 2000 when the Dean of Students Patricia Carter at Governor's State University in University Park, Ill., canceled further publication of the school's student newspaper until students agree to let administration review its content. In response, three students sued the university for infringing on their First Amendment rights.
If the court rules in favor of Carter, administration at colleges and universities in the three states will have censorship rights on all school sponsored student activities, said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center.
\[A ruling in favor of Carter] would say any school-sponsored activity that involves free expression on campus--student media included--could be reviewed by school officials before publication,"" he said.
Robert Dreschel, a UW-Madison professor of journalism, said he thinks a ruling allowing university administration censorship would have negative consequences.
""The really bothersome part is that if that's what the court were to decide, then clearly, legally speaking, that authority would be there and I think that would be devastatingly bad,"" Dreschel said.
Despite possible implications in Wisconsin, Dreschel said he thinks censorship is unlikely to be an issue at UW-Madison.
""I frankly very much doubt that the administration at UW-Madison would have the slightest interest in attempting to censor The Badger Herald or The Daily Cardinal and so on. I think that's just a matter of common sense and wisdom that that would be the case,"" Dreschel said.
Paul Barrows, vice chancellor of student affairs at UW-Madison, said he is unaware of administrative attempts to censor student activities at UW-Madison in the past. Additionally, he said he thinks UW-Madison works to preserve freedom of speech.
However, Barrows said with such freedom comes a certain level of accountability.
""We would ... like to emphasize how important it is to be responsible,"" he said.
Though UW-Madison may be unlikely to take advantage of censorship opportunities, Goodman said he believes that other college and university administrators would like to see the court ruling favor Carter because they want censorship power.
""I think that schools are concerned about image. They want to control the image of the school that is presented to the community, and one way to do that is by censoring student media,"" Goodman said. ""The fact is that it's not their role to control image through censoring student media or other school sponsored activities on a college or university campus.""
Since the courts have ruled in favor of First Amendment rights for college students in the past, Goodman said he thinks a ruling in favor of Carter would be unusual.
A ruling on this case is expected sometime next summer.
