It is not NIU’s job to prevent credit card companies from advertising in unauthorized areas said University Legal Counsel George Shur.

“There are certain places on campus where we allow commercial activities to occur,” Shur said. Unauthorized posters can appear on the Altgeld Hall bulletin board and “information tables” in each residence hall. The Holmes Student Center Bookstore makes its own arrangements regarding sales pieces, Shur said.

“This university is not in business to go around censoring what people put on its bulletin boards unless it’s illegal and we know it’s illegal.

“It’s not proper for the university to have people to check sidewalks, bulletin boards, sides of buildings and trees—where people put things. That’s not the function of a university,” he said.

Recent court cases point out differing views of students’ rights to information and universities’ authority to ban solicitation from their buildings.

In the Oct. 17, issue of Higher Education and National Affairs, it was reported that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the second of two cases concerning a Pennsylvania kitchenware company which wanted to sell its products on college campuses.

In the first case, “American Futures Systems, Inc., v. Penn State University,” a circuit court ruled that the university could deny commercial firms access to its residence halls, Shur said.

“Commercial free speech is treated differently than religious or political free speech,” Shur said. There is less freedom because commercial firms are out to make a profit, he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this month to hear a U.S. district court case concerning attempts of AFS to sell its products in university dormitory rooms. The suit was filed after a company representative was arrested and charged with loitering, trespass and soliciting without a permit after she refused to leave a dorm room where she wanted to give a presentation.

The suit was filed by AFS and Todd Fox, the student in whose room the demonstration was to have been given. AFS withdrew from the case, and “Board of Trustees of the State of New York v. Fox” was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and returned the case to the district court for review.

No date has been set yet for the supreme court hearing of the case.

The larger question, Shur says, is “whether the university has a responsibility for anything advertised on its boards,” from a lecture to pizza, he said.

“It’s like saying if the Chicago Tribune advertised a Chevrolet and someone bought it and gets hurt in it,” Shur said. He questioned whether the newspaper would be liable.