A significant case is going to court this fall that could erase a First Amendment right for college students in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

The case, Hosty v. Carter, stemmed from an incident that occurred at Governors State University (Ill.) two years ago

In fall 2000, GSU Dean Patricia Carter stopped the printing of the university’s newspaper, the Innovator, because it had printed stories and editorials that were critical of the school administration.

Carter called up the paper’s printer and told him not to print any more issues of the Innovator until Carter or another administrator had approved it.

Jim Killam, president of the Illinois College Press Association and adviser for the Northern Star, said at that point, the students voluntarily stopped printing the paper. The case now is being brought to the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which means the outcome will affect colleges and universities in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Killam said the Innovator made some ethical errors. The paper’s top two editors also were student senators, a combination that is prohibited at the Northern Star.

Also, several investigative stories in the Innovator about a GSU English department coordinator were written by some of the coordinator’s students. Killam said the stories should have been assigned to reporters with no perceived conflicts of interest.

Despite the paper’s ethical problems, Killam said that because GSU is a public university, Carter’s actions were illegal.

“Whether a paper has ethical problems is for the students to work out and make it right or not,” Killam said.

In 2001, student journalists Margaret Hosty, Jeni Porche and Steven Barba sued the school on the grounds that Carter’s action violated their First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The case is expected to go to appeals court sometime this fall.

Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan took the school’s side, asking the appeals court to consider a Supreme Court decision in 1988. The ruling on Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier granted high school administrators the right to censor high school newspapers.

“What the Illinois attorney general is doing is he’s arguing that a high school-based censorship is applicable at colleges,” said Mike Heistand, an attorney at the Student Press Law Center.

By asking the court to extend the Hazelwood decision to colleges and universities, Ryan essentially is asking for a First Amendment right to freedom of press to be taken away from college students.

Part of the controversy revolves around the fact that the Innovator was published by the GSU administration. Pat Cunningham, a reporter for the Rockford Register Star, wrote an article July 29 titled, “You can’t always get what you want on the press.” In the article, Cunningham argued that as publishers of the Innovator, the GSU administration had a right to decide what was printed in the paper.

“Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one,” Cunningham wrote.

Killam responded to Cunningham’s argument by saying that it is a college newspaper’s “constitutionally protected responsibility” to serve as the watchdog of the administration. His response, titled “NIU student editors don’t have a university safety net,” also was printed in the Rockford Register Star. It described an incident that occurred at NIU more than a decade ago.

In the mid-1980s, Killam said, students working at the Northern Star received anonymous tips that then-NIU President Clyde Wingfield was spending large amounts of public money to remodel his home. Despite pressure from the university, they investigated the incident and found evidence of questionable spending.

“The resulting stories drew the attention of the Illinois legislature and NIU’s governing board,” Killam wrote.

The Northern Star stories ultimately resulted in Wingfield’s firing. Killam said that under a system allowing administrators to censor school newspapers, none of those stories ever would have been published.

The students suing GSU originally planned to represent themselves. However, the Student Press Law Center requested permission from the court to represent the students. The court granted permission.

If the court rules in favor of the GSU administration on Hosty vs. Carter, college newspapers in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, will lose their right to freedom of press. However, Killam said he doesn’t think the Northern Star would be greatly affected by the ruling. He said the Star does not receive any student fees from the administration.

“We’re very close to being totally independent,” he said.

Currently, the university only serves as something like a bank for the Northern Star, in that NIU handles all of the Star’s finances, including deposits and payroll. The Star also pays rent to the university for space in the Campus Life Building. Killam said the newspaper has a very good relationship with NIU’s administration.

“I’m not feeling like anyone is coming in and trying to censor the students,” he said.

Killam also said that NIU President John Peters plans not to censor the Northern Star, regardless of the ruling on Hosty vs. Carter.

“I don’t think it’s an issue here,” Killam said. “There are schools where it would be.”