Teaching freedom where it does not exist

Thirty-seven teachers from Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee gathered at The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., in November for a conference designed to give them materials and training to better teach their students about the First Amendment.

Some would regard the effort as quixotic.

Supreme Court upholds student fees

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Colleges and universities may use mandatory student activity fees to finance campus groups that engage in political speech as long as the funding system is viewpoint-neutral, the Supreme Court ruled in March.

In a unanimous decision, the Court rejected the argument of Christian and conservative students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison that the university's fee system violated their First Amendment rights by forcing them to fund groups they disagree with on political, religious or ideological grounds.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M.

Supporter wants federal press protections

MASSACHUSETTS -- Out of frustration with the slow progress supporters have made in getting states to pass anti-Hazelwood legislation, one adviser is working to pass a bill at the national level.

Harry Proudfoot, a newspaper adviser at Westport High School, said he believes passing one bill in Congress will be easier than passing 44 bills in the states.

State attorney general says fraternity party police report exempt from law

MISSISSIPPI -- The state attorney general's office said in January that the University of Mississippi does not have to release campus crime reports or police logs pertaining to a 1999 fraternity party incident that sent five female students to the hospital.

The Daily Mississippian, the university's student newspaper, and The Clarion-Ledger, a Jackson newspaper, requested the reports from campus police shortly after the incident occurred in November.

Student body president, administrator halt Md. newspaper’s presses on election day

MARYLAND -- The administration of Morgan State University agreed to reimburse the school's student newspaper in March for advertising revenue it lost after school officials ordered the printer to delay delivery of the election-day issue.

Spokesman editor Kevin Howell also asked administrators to reprimand the two people involved -- the school's student activities coordinator and student government association president -- for effectively censoring the newspaper because of their suspicions that the issue contained candidate endorsements.

Howell said SGA president Julian Dash called him on the morning of March 16 asking to see a copy of the newspaper.