Jonathan Hiskes | Dec. 7, 2007
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| Photo by Jonathan Hiskes |
| IDS adviser Ruth Witmer and members of the campus chapter of SPJ are working to find support for the Student Free Press Act. |
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Student media advisers around the state have worked on the bill, and IU student members of the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists plan to support it with a letter-writing campaign when it is introduced in the Statehouse next month, Indiana Daily Student adviser Ruth Witmer said.
“If these students are going out into the world as professional journalists, they need to be able to practice their craft here without being impeded by the interests of the university,” she said.
The bill is a response to the 2005 Hosty v. Carter decision in the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said administrative controls on high school newspapers can be extended to college publications. Witmer said this ruling could allow college administrators to require prior approval for student media.
A number of states responded with laws that protect the editorial independence of students. Some, such as Indiana, have bills in the works. The Indiana Collegiate Press Association helped draft the bill.
“I don’t know that we have any indication that the administrations at our universities have a desire to exercise control overtly,” said Merv Hendricks, an ICPA board member and the student publications director at Indiana State University. “But there is a door ajar that we want to close through this bill. That’s what’s driving this.”
The Student Free Press Act is nicknamed “The Dave Adams Law” in honor of the IU student media advisor who died last summer. He was an advocate of student press freedoms and planned to work on the bill this year.
“Dave was always an outspoken advocate for the rights of student journalists, and this bill is a wonderful way to honor his memory,” said interim student media director Nancy Comiskey.
“This is the kind of thing he championed all the time,” said Witmer. “The free and open press is the backbone of the whole democratic process in this country. You can’t do things to hamper that. And Hosty v. Carter was viewed as a decision that would hamper that quite a bit.”
The Indiana bill, like those in other states, would effectively nullify Hosty v. Carter.
The IDS already has more independence than most college newspapers because it is financially self-sufficient. It is run entirely on advertising revenue, Witmer said.
“It’s not like President McRobbie could call tomorrow and say ‘Don’t run that editorial,’ which I don’t think he would. But no administrator and no trustee can exercise that control because we’re financially independent,” she said.
The bill would bring the same protection to college publications that rely on school funding. At Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Hendricks said the three-times-a-week Indiana Statesman relies on student fees for about 30 percent of its funding. The administration has never tried to control the paper in his time there, but he said the bill is necessary anyway.
“The heart of student journalism — at public universities, at least — is student control of content and decision making,” he said.
Sen. Hershman, the bill’s author, and Simpson, its co-sponsor, will introduce the legislation when the state General Assembly’s session begins in January. The ICPA is still looking for supporters in the state House of Representatives.
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