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.
NEVADA -- In March, the state attorney general's office offered to teach the University of Nevada Board of Regents a lesson on the proper way to conduct public meetings.
Deputy Attorney General Victoria Oldenburg conducted an investigation into the board's compliance with the Nevada Open Meeting Law, in response to a complaint filed by Regent Tom Kirkpatrick against the board.
Legislation designed to protect student expression in school-sponsored publications died in Alabama in April after the bill's sponsor withdrew it from consideration.
KENTUCKY -- Kentucky State University, which is being sued by former students for violating their First Amendment rights in Kincaid v.
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.
OHIO -- A federal judge refused to give a newspaper access to the student disciplinary records of two Ohio universities on March 20, saying the files qualify as education records and are protected from public release by federal law.
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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.
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.
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.
KENTUCKY -- A new state law will require colleges and universities to provide more timely and public information about campus crimes starting in September.
Under the Michael Minger Act, post-secondary institutions must keep an accurate log of all crimes reported on campus available to the public.