Tag: Fall 2000

Students at Auburn and Indiana University are struggling with school officials over access to meetings that student journalists think the public has a right to attend.

A wall of silence surrounds an Indiana commission chosen to develop guidelines for acceptable behavior for all students and faculty in the school's athletic department.

The committee members, appointed by university President Myles Brand after sanctions were imposed against Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight for misconduct, held their first closed meeting in May with no prior notice to the public and no comments afterward regarding what took place inside.

It appears that the commission's code of conduct, once decided, will be all the information that is released thanks to what Indiana Daily Student editor John Silver called a loophole in Indiana's open-meetings laws.

"The reason they can close [the meetings] to the public is that the commission members were appointed by the president -- not an elected/appointed governing body -- and not the board of trustees," Silver said.

OHIO -- A full panel of federal appellate court judges heard oral arguments May 30 in what may be the most important case heard to date regarding the First Amendment protections afforded America's college student media.

In September 1999, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- A superior court judge ruled in July that the North Thurston County School District violated the constitutional rights of a student who was suspended for ridiculing a school administrator on his personal Web site.

Judge Thomas McPhee found that because former Timberline High School student Karl Beidler's Web site was not an on-campus activity and did not create a substantial disruption of the school day, school officials were not justified in punishing him for it.

NEW YORK -- A state court judge ruled in July that the City University of New York's University Student Senate violated the state's open-meetings and freedom-of-information laws by electing officers and conducting votes by secret ballot.

State Supreme Court Justice William J.

NEW YORK -- Citing 'aesthetic reasons,' administrators at the City University of New York's Graduate Center removed distribution bins for the school's student newspaper and replaced them with two much smaller racks -- a move that editors say seriously hampers their distribution efforts.

Editor Mark Petras said the old bins held up to 300 copies of The Advocate, but now his staff can only distribute around 60 issues at a time in the plastic racks that appeared in April in the lobby of the school's nine-story building, which is the paper's main distribution site.

"If our distribution in the lobby is stopped, it really cuts off circulation to the whole building and the whole school," Petras said.

School officials have designated a shelf, the bottom of six on the rack, as the one on which the papers are to be placed.

A federal law that criminalizes the commercial transmission of material deemed harmful to minors over the Web is unconstitutional, according to a unanimous ruling by a federal appeals court in June.

The three-judge panel of the U.S.

VIRGINIA -- Censorship calls to the Student Press Law Center from public high school journalists rose more than 14 percent last year.

ILLINOIS -- Northern Illinois University officials admitted violating the First Amendment after confiscating film from a school newspaper photographer in May.

The film contained pictures of a graduate student who took off all her clothes to protest remarks made by a speaker at a religious debate on campus. Because the police arrived too late to identify the woman, an officer approached Northern Star photography editor Kevin Slattery and asked for his camera. When he refused, a few plain-clothed officers arrived and told him if he did not give up the camera he would be arrested.

"I was upset because I didn't know my rights," Slattery said.

WEST VIRGINIA -- The Mercury may not be rising this fall at Glenville State College if The Mercury Strategic Plan Task Force follows through with all of its recommendations for the school's student newspaper.

Christopher Williams, office manager of The Mercury, said the college's president formed the committee to make some major changes to the paper, including a revision of the newspaper's charter and development of a publication committee that Williams said could regulate story content before publication.

The task force is looking into areas of the paper's operation, including its budget, format, mission and purpose, number of issues, production schedule, staffing policies and adviser selection as well as ways to "ensure that it meets the mission" of the school.

He said the committee is also considering moving the newspaper office from its current location and totally eliminating the print version of the paper, leaving a solely online publication.

Williams said among the explanations given for the changes is the fact that the paper's budget, which is funded by student fees, is being affected by a decline in enrollment.

However, he also said school officials have been upset with critical articles The Mercury has printed and thinks the administration's view that the paper has not done "an adequate job of informing students on campus" really disguises its desire to control content.

"They don't want us to print anything derogatory to the university," Williams said.

PENNSYLVANIA -- In a departure from most court rulings concerning schools' ability to punish students for their Web sites, a state court ruled in July that a Bethlehem school district did not violate the First Amendment rights of a middle school student when it expelled him for a Web page he created at home.

Although most courts that have heard cases on this subject have sided with the students (see Web site), the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court found that district officials were justified in expelling former Nitschmann Middle School student Justin Swidler because comments on his Web site could be considered threats against a teacher at the school.