MOST PEOPLE assume that college campuses are safe havens for free speech and enlightened debate. In the case of student newspapers and publications, however, college administrators often try to control these publications to avoid controversy or articles putting the school in a bad light.
In October 1998, student editors at Neumann College in suburban Philadelphia temporarily suspended publication of the school newspaper after school administrators demanded prior review in reaction to a controversial editorial cartoon. The demand for prior review was withdrawn after the student editors agreed to develop a mission statement for the paper and form a student and faculty advisory board.
Earlier this month at Morgan State University, the school's student activities coordinator and student government association president ordered the school newspaper's printer to delay delivery of an issue of the paper until after a school election because they were concerned that the issue contained candidate endorsements.
In 1988, school officials at Muhlenberg College pulled the school newspaper from the school Web site after the online newspaper published articles critical of the school.
That same year, at the University of Rhode Island, student protesters and the student senate executive committee requested a formal apology from the school newspaper for running a racist cartoon. The senate chairman temporarily froze the paper's student senate account for the rest of the semester.
In the past, federal and state courts have consistently recognized First Amendment protections for students at public colleges and universities, and courts have allowed public college administrators to censor student media only when they can demonstrate that some significant and imminent physical disruption of the campus will result from the publication's content.
Censorship of college publications has not been allowed even when the material was obscene, offensive, libelous, or of poor quality. Courts have ruled that colleges may not suspend a student editor for publishing controversial articles, withdraw funding because of a school newspaper's offensive content or censor the content of a student publication.
Since the First Amendment prevents only the government and its agents from denying a person his or her free speech rights, First Amendment guarantees of free speech and press do not apply to private colleges and universities.
