N.J. college keeps newspaper from photographing defaced banner

NEW JERSEY Administratorsat Cumberland County College denied the student newspaper’sright to publish a photo of a campus banner that contained a vulgarword.College officials removed a Sept. 11 remembrance banner from the hallsof a fine arts building after one anonymous student wrote “FuckY’all” on it. When the student-run newspaper, The Voice,attempted to take a photograph of the banner for the upcoming edition, theadministrator who held it refused to give the paper access, even after theeditors agreed to cover the offending part of the banner.PresidentKenneth Ender later told student editors they could see the banner only if theysigned a “community standards agreement,” said Patty Hanahoe-Dosch,adviser to the paper. But Ender failed to define those standards, so studentsrefused his proposition, she said.Hanahoe-Dosch said the editorsbelieved that by signing the agreement, Ender would have the authority to censorthe content of the newspaper. The standard also would violate their FirstAmendment rights, she said.Amid student protests, administrators re-hungthe banner in a remote area on campus away from a main hall a week later, but itwas too late for the twice-semester newspaper to photograph the banner. In theplace of the photograph, the paper published in its Oct. 8 edition a criticaleditorial and a front-page article bearing the headline, “Students losttheir voice on campus.”No agreement has been made betweenadministrators and student editors that would explicitly allow the printing ofquestionable material, Hanahoe-Dosch said.