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On April 5, 1986, 19-year-old Jeanne Clery was asleep in her dorm room at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Another student broke into her room, tortured, raped and killed her. Her killer had entered the building through a door that was supposed to be locked but was propped open. Jeanne's parents found out after her death that there had been 181 reports of doors propped open in her building in the four months before her murder and that students had not been told about multiple violent crimes on campus over the past few years.

From Florida to Texas, newspaper thieves are learning after the first free copy of a newspaper, if they do not pay monetarily, they will pay somehow. But theft prevention tips may help to thwart a thief's plan and save the newspaper money.

When former editors at the university-sponsored newspaper, the Chronicle, leaped to an independent, online-only newspaper, Quinnipiac University officials in Hamden, Conn., isolated themselves from the student journalists.

In 1969, the Supreme Court established in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that students have the right to freedom of expression at school as long as their expression does not cause "substantial disruption." But when some colleges and universities tried to govern students' rights, those students took the matter to court and, in some cases, prevailed. These cases did not involve the media, but the court rulings may impact student journalism.

Across the nation college newspapers are either struggling with money or holding steady in a less-than-perfect economy. While college publications try to keep their advertising revenue and readership up to avoid job cuts and losing publication days, commercial newspapers have fallen behind.

SPLC presented the Courage in Student Journalism Award, co-sponsored by the Newseum and the National Scholastic Press Association, to student editors Jaishri Shankar and Rachel Wagner, adviser Peter Daddone and Principal Debra Munk of Maryland's Rockville High School for their joint efforts in publishing a package of stories exposing gang activity in the neighborhood.

This edition of the SPLC Report marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Tinker decision, in which the Court famously declared that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."