TheOtherView
Opinions from around the country

Stop the presses. No really, stop the presses, pack them up and find a different line of work. The First Amendment has become an inconvenience.

Or at least that’s what many public and private college administrations believe and are telling student publications. This is a dangerous trend and it seems to be spreading rapidly across the country.

Last week, Nick Will, the editor in chief of the Harvard Business School’s student newspaper, the Harbus, resigned his position amid a firestorm sparked after the paper published an editorial cartoon. The one-panel cartoon addressed a computer system malfunction that left a number of students scrambling to sort out interview schedules assigned for a cooperate recruiting session.

The content of the satire showed the career services Web site overloaded with a number of pop-up error messages, one of which displayed “incompetent morons.”

Will resigned citing personal intimidation and threats by Harvard Business School administration. The administration defends its actions bringing attention to the school’s community standards code saying the cartoon insulted the college’s career services staff.

Private school administrators are not the only ones attempting to cut off free press. This fall, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear a case that may set a dangerous precedent in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. The case, Hotsy v. Carter, alleges college administrators have exercised prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment. Three Governors State College students, two editors and a reporter, have filed suit after a school administrator called the printer of the Innovator, the student newspaper, and demanded the paper not be printed without the approval of university officials.

If the court finds in favor of Carter, college officials across the Midwest would be able to review and censor a publication before it is printed. What’s next? Administrators competing for journalism scholarships and copy editing positions?

These are potentially dangerous precedents that are sending ripples — if not shock waves — through an industry the public loves to hate. Regardless of opinion, journalism and the First Amendment are base requirements for the foundation of the society we know and enjoy today. To strike at freedom of speech in an environment that has historically been known as a challenging and cultivating proponent of free thinking is unfathomable. College students — journalists or not — need to take the responsibility and fight to preserve what colleges and universities have always been — a haven for ideas and debate, not a forum of censored thoughts and repressed interactions.

This is a staff editorial from the Iowa State Daily at Iowa State University. This editorial was distributed by U-Wire.