News

CALIFORNIA -- State legislators are taking aim at crime reporting by institutions of higher education by considering a bill that would require random audits of campus crime statistics.

COLORADO ' Gov. Bill Owens signed a bill June 1 that requires sex offenders in Colorado to register with colleges and universities and calls for a statewide database to track the offenders.

INDIANA ' In a report that further clarifies a college's obligation to maintain campus police logs under federal law, the U.S.

OHIO ' The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on July 27 upheld an injunction sought by the U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. ' In a ruling that could mean easier access to campus crime information, the U.S.

Red tape is not what is standing in their way. On college and university campuses, the thick black lines that redact key crime details on campus security reports are the newest information barrier for student journalists.

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\n Whether it is legitimate confusion about federal reporting procedures or intentional omission to preserve the image of the school, reporters are finding that institutions of higher education are reluctant to release campus crime information to journalists.

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\n Editors of the Branding Iron are considering suing the University of Wyoming for withholding the details of two on-campus sexual assaults.

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\n The staff is seeking the release of locations and witness names under the state open-records law after limited information was released on April 5.

WASHINGTON, D.C. ' A battle over intellectual property is brewing at American University after a student was charged with violating several disciplinary codes for videotaping an on-campus speech by Tipper Gore, wife of former presidential candidate Al Gore.

Ben Wetmore, then a junior at American, was charged with seven disciplinary code violations after he videotaped Gore's speech in April, then refused to hand the tape over to university officials.

IOWA ' The state supreme court sided with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in June, saying the newspaper's editors did not have to release the names of confidential sources.

The Courier is suing Hawkeye Community College for open-meetings violations involving the termination of President William Hierstein.

FLORIDA ' The state association that oversees attorneys is claiming that shield laws do not apply to students and that the University of Florida's student television station should be required to turn over the tape of an interview.

The Florida Bar wants the copy of a taped interview in which an attorney allegedly made a statement out of court about pending litigation, an apparent ethics violation.

OHIO -- What began as a battle over a student's right to view his Web page at school has resulted in a ruling that the conduct code at North Canton City Schools is unconstitutional.

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\n Jonathan Coy was suspended for five days from North Canton Middle School in 2001 for viewing ''lewd and obscene material'' on his skateboarding Web site during school hours.

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\n In April 2002, a federal trial court found that a section of the school district's conduct code was ''constitutionally invalid on its face'' because it was too vague.

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\n The passage stated, ''Any action or behavior judged by school officials to be inappropriate and not specifically mentioned in other sections shall be in violation of the Student Conduct Code.''

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\n The school district has since altered the code to read, ''Students will not be punished or limited in their lawful right to express themselves on-campus or off-campus in a manner that is protected by the First Amendment.''