A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that a 1988 Supreme Court decision that gave wide latitude to high-school administrators to review and censor student publications does not apply to student newspapers at public colleges. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made the ruling in finding that a dean at Governors State University does not have immunity from a suit filed by the editors of The Innovator, the student newspaper at the Illinois institution. The editors sued the dean after she told the newspaper's printer that a university official had to approve the content of the newspaper before it could be printed. Patricia A. Carter, the dean of student affairs and services at Governors State, admitted making that request to the printer in 2000. But she argued -- with backing from the Illinois attorney general -- that the suit should have been dismissed because of uncertainty about the constitutional protections afforded to college journalists. Her lawyers cited the 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, in which the court ruled that high-school journalists did not enjoy the same First Amendment protections as adults. While the Hazelwood decision dealt with high-school journalists, many college journalists have feared that it could be used to limit their freedom. As a result, many journalism groups have backed the Governors State student editors and warned that a ruling against them could have broad implications for college newspapers.
In Thursday's decision, the court ruled that college journalists are protected by the U.S. Constitution, unlike high-school journalists. "The differences between a college and a high school are far greater than the obvious differences in curriculum and extracurricular activities," the decision said. "While Hazelwood teaches that younger students in a high-school setting must endure First Amendment restrictions, we see nothing in that case that should be interpreted to change the general view favoring broad First Amendment rights for students at the university level."

On April 10, 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld freedom of the press at Governors State University (GSU), in University Park, Illinois. FIRE had joined an amicus brief submitted by the Student Press Law Center urging the Court to vindicate the basic first amendment rights of college students. Judge Terence T. Evans, who wrote the decision, called this brief "superb." This is a crucial victory that undoes an attempt to impose a truly draconian form of censorship on college students and should serve as a warning to any university that seeks to treat their students as children. [FIRE's brief is here]