Student free-press advocates scored a victory August 10 as the California State Senate passed legislation prohibiting the censorship of public university newspapers and extending free-speech protection for college journalists.

The bill, AB 2581, is nicknamed the “Hosty bill” in reference to the 2005 Hosty v. Carter decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court held that censorship rights of high-school officials could apply to public colleges in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear a Hosty case appeal, the California Assembly responded in May by unanimously passing the free student press legislation now approved by the State Senate on a 31-2 vote. The bill awaits the governor’s signature.

Public universities across California will be affected in varying degrees by the bill. Among those closest to Stanford, Berkeley’s Daily Cal will experience little new freedom, as writer Katlyn Carter noted that the student newspaper already enjoys full freedom of the press.

“Our paper is independent from the University,” she said. “It broke with the University over an issue of free speech. It had to do with the Vietnam War, and the paper printed an editorial that was very against it. The University wanted them to retract the editorial, and the paper decided to stand by what they said, and they broke [off from the University].”

Marion Everidge, Managing Editor of the California Aggie at UC Davis, said that The Aggie, on the other hand, is under more University control.

“We are regulated by the school’s Campus Media Board, and so that handles all publications that come out of UC Davis,” she said. “They regulate, and they do the hiring of our editor in chief. They are the overall seers.”

She noted that the Campus Media Board and the newspaper writers “don’t really interact,” and that the paper has recently printed potentially controversial material about university officials. The paper does however print a disclaimer noting that The Aggie’s views are separate from those of the school.

“If [the law] goes into effect, it means we have the free overall ability to print,” she said, adding that campus newspapers would rightfully have “the right and the ability to report the news accurately, without any sort of umbrella regulations.”

Carter also noted that she personally believes that the legislation would be a good change.

“I think [the new legislation is] a good thing, especially when there are instances when the paper can really make a difference and expose something that’s going on at the University, which officials often don’t want students to know about,” she said. “It’s a good bill to pass.”

Communications Prof. Ted Glasser, a Stanford Daily board member, agreed that this legislation is important, though he referenced its drawbacks.

“I think the legislation is almost entirely symbolic, but symbolic in an important sense,” he said. “It’s a nice public statement. It doesn’t apply to private universities. There are so many private universities that strictly control their student press and they’re protected by the Constitution. It’s no violation, but state universities are subjects of the state and subject to First Amendment concerns.”

The Stanford Daily already enjoys the freedom of the press the legislation hopes to provide for public schools. It became an organization entirely independent from the University following the 1971 Zurcher v. Stanford Daily lawsuit. The suit was filed after the Palo Alto Police Department searched The Daily for pictures of a violent clash between police and protestors.

“As for now, The Daily is financially independent from the University, which can wield no official say over what we print,” said former Editor in Chief Camille Ricketts. “The only time I have run into conflict with the administration or faculty is when the paper has printed something inaccurate and we have had to amend something. I can’t think of any specific episodes when an administrator or faculty member outright told me to change something or to not print a quote or story that was fair-game.”

Glasser agreed that the University usually supports The Daily’s freedom, though there are minor tensions at times.

“It became its own corporation, so to speak, and Stanford has historically been eager to accept that arrangement, and regards freedom of the press as important,” he said. “That’s not to say there aren’t tensions at times between the University and the Daily.”

One such experience occurred when Ricketts was a managing editor of news and L. Paul Bremer, the former leader of the American occupation in Iraq, came to speak at Stanford.

“The ASSU Speakers Bureau was very upset because Bremer had requested that his speech be off the record, and we planned to cover it anyway,” Ricketts said. “For a while they said they were not going to allow us into the presentation or that no recording devices would be allowed. In the end, they just barred us from the pre-speech interview; but that’s really all they could do.”

Glasser also referenced a time when the University had leased the stadium to an outside group and did not want The Daily distributed there because the group had its own publication. The situation led to The Daily’s argument that its publication shouldn’t be restricted on campus, followed by a lawsuit that was resolved out of court, giving The Daily “a seat at the table when a third party comes to the university,” said then-business manager Todd Bernstein.

Despite these few instances, Ricketts noted that The Daily has “never had serious concerns about censorship or restricted freedom,” but other schools without student-run and economically independent publications face a much different battle. For this reason, she commended the current bill.

“I know that other schools don’t enjoy these luxuries,” she said. “Or, [they] have too small an organization to fight a meddling administration, and in that sense I think the legislation is a positive step. Not only will it help a student readership remain better informed of what may or may not be going well at their school, but it will be invaluable to student journalists who have to learn on the job how to battle undue influence and reluctant sources.”

Clarification:

The move toward independence at the University of California-Barkeley's Daily Californian was initiated after the university administration attempted to fire three editors because of a controversial editorial regarding Peoples' Park, a University owned lot in the Southside neighborhood of Berkeley that became an unplanned park for locals. The Daily Californian became independent in 1971.