n a victory for public college and university newspapers, the U.S. Court of Appeals decided that administrators cannot censor student-run newspapers.

The case arose in 2001 when editors of the Innovator, Governors State University's student newspaper, decided to sue the dean of student affairs Patricia Carter for censoring the newspaper.

The decision, which wasn't expected until mid-summer, doesn't support the state of Illinois' request to apply a ruling in a similar case involving high school publications.

In 1988, the United States Supreme Court granted administrators in the Hazelwood School District authority to review and censor its high school-sponsored newspapers. The state of Illinois was looking for this decision to be applied to public college and university students, but has been unsuccessful so far.

"It's a wonderful victory," said Mike Hiestand, attorney for the Student Press Law Center. "It could have been a devastating defeat, but luckily it went the other way."

He said throughout the case, there was a feeling that the law would be on students' side.

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said in a press release he hopes this decision reaffirms the last 30 years of college censorship cases.

"We hope that this ruling will dissuade—once and for all—college officials who are inclined to censor from engaging in that unconstitutional behavior," Goodman said.

In its ruling, the Court said, "...Hazelwood's rationale for limiting the First Amendment rights of high school journalism students is not a good fit for students at colleges of universities."

The decision went on to state that the differences between college and high school newspapers are far greater than differences in curriculum and extracurriculars.

Carter, who looked for qualified immunity in the case, was denied. The court denied her request on the notion that if her action to censor the Innovator is true, then "she violated clear rights of which she should have been aware."

"I think the decision reflects that there was no uncertainty in their mind and what school officials at Governors State did was wrong," Hiestand said.

He said that the case is not over because it could carry on in trial courts if it continues to be pursued.

"Other courts that are faced with this question are going to look at this decision," Hiestand said. "The students won big time today, but the case is ongoing. I think it's just a matter of formality now."

The Vietnamese Student Association and Southeast Asia Club are sponsoring a Vietnamese Cultural night.

"This is [the] first time the VSA is having the Vietnamese Cultural Night at NIU," said Hanh Nguyen, vice president of the VSA. "We wish everything goes well this year and hope the audience will learn and be aware of different aspects of Vietnamese culture and heritage."

Some events included tonight will be traditional dances and music, Ao Dai fashion, Vietnamese martial arts, slide presentation and storytelling.

"Our purpose is to promote Vietnamese culture and heritage at NIU and its community," Nguyen said.

Nguyen also is optimistic about the turnout of the event.

"We are expecting about 300 to 400 people coming from different areas," he said. "[They are coming from] NIU, DeKalb, Rockford, Naperville, Chicago, Iowa and other areas."

Food also will be served, and will be made by members of the VSA.

"Our VSA members will cook all of the Vietnamese food," Nguyen said. "There will be egg rolls, shrimp, fried rice, stir-fried noodles, mixed salad with shrimp crackers, roasted pork, fruit cocktails and other desserts. We will also provide vegetarian meals and beverages."

There is no cost to attend the event but if you choose to eat, a food ticket is $6 per person.

To order a meal, call 753-1771 and specify a meat or vegetarian meal.

For information, e-mail [email protected].

The NIU Art Museum has not had a home since 1998, but that is not stopping it from displaying its collection all around DeKalb.

The museum originated in the 1960s and has had several locations throughout the years, but made its first appearance in the auditorium of Altgeld Hall in 1991.

From then, the art museum resided in Altgeld Hall, but since December 1998, when it was closed for major renovations, it has been a "Museum Without Walls."

The Museum Without Walls program is a way to keep presenting its collection of contemporary art throughout the DeKalb area. It works with local community groups, organizations, business groups and artists to explore ideas for locations of art exhibits.

The most recent project by the museum was the DeKalb Farmland Project, which examined the issues of food production, soil sustainability and housing developments.

"We worked with the NIU departments of geography and geology to hold the exhibit in the old Woolworth's storefront [in downtown DeKalb]," said Jo Burke, assistant director of the NIU Art Museum.

The art museum also worked with the DeKalb Park District to renovate Huntley Park.

"The art museum provided most of the legwork for the Labyrinth [Garden] project; we only provided some of the resources and funds," said Dave Emanuelson, executive director of the DeKalb Park District.

The NIU Art Museum also helped create the mural painted on the side of the building on the corner of First Street and Lincoln Highway.

The museum will be without a permanent home until Altgeld Hall reopens after its five-year renovation project in spring 2004.

Reality Overload," the theme of this years 13th annual Asian American Association Fashion Show, will be based on America's favorite reality series.

The show will begin at 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Egyptian Theater, 135 N. 2nd St., and will last for over two hours.

This show is packed with popular up-beat music, dancing, videos and skits, said Janet Yap, a sophomore elementary education major.

"Basically, each scene is made up of a dance, a skit and a walk," she said. "Each dance is made up by the choreographers and taught to all the models."

This year's show includes everything from casual to club clothes. Yap said she enjoys the "hip-hop" look for the summer.

"To me, the hip-hop look is a casual-looking sporty top and trendy-looking dirty jeans," she said. "This year for the fashion show, men and women are modeling clothes that have to do with their specific scene. For example, the club scene would model club clothes, the casual scene would model casual clothes and so on."

Fashion show models began practicing about five months before the show.

Richard Bernardo, a junior communication major and AAA multi-media director, said they are hoping to see about 400 people turn out for the show.

"We've been working very hard on this, practicing four times a week since January, and we hope it turns out really well," Bernardo said.

Tickets are free for NIU students with a student ID, $3 for non-NIU students with an ID and $5 for anyone without a student ID.

"It's the AAA's biggest event of the year," Yap said. "Anyone who decides to attend the show will not regret it."

The Student Association finance committee concluded a nearly four-hour meeting by slashing almost $300,000 from the proposed Campus Activity Board's budget.

CAB's proposed budget, which originally was more than $850,000, was cut to $555,000 after the committee went line by line through CAB's 15 sub-budgets, making deductions.

The committee spent the first half of the meeting reviewing the adjustments made at the meetings that were held Tuesday and Wednesday.

Originally, the committee cut the budget to about $585,000.

Each sub-budget once again was examined line by line for priority. Honorariums, which are amounts paid to speakers or performers for attending events, were reduced.

Then, the committee followed up with more cuts, hoping to cut an additional $50,000. After close review, the committee chose to cut about $30,000.

During discussion of CAB's Visual Arts budget, finance committee member Jeff Meyer said the committee should wait until the SA art curator in the proposed SA budget comes up before discussing Visual Arts.

"I'll do one better," said SA treasurer and president-elect Shaun Crisler, "I'll cross it off."

Crisler made a verbal agreement with the finance committee, saying he will remove the position of art curator from the SA's budget.

He also said he will eliminate pay increases for paid SA positions, despite his desire to recruit talented people.

Crisler said he plans to go line by line with the finance committee and the SA Senate when the budget comes up for review, adding he will present a proposed SA budget of about $255,000.

"If you don't think this is the right amount, then show me where I am wrong," said Crisler, speaking about letters he has received concerning the originally proposed budget of $294,000.

He remained adamant on his stance that since funding for the SA comes from student fees, it is separate from any budget crisis and tuition increase that occurs on state and university levels.

After going 0-2 and having three games canceled in the last 10 days, the NIU softball team looks to get in a groove.

They hope that back-to-back away doubleheaders against Toledo (5-17, 2-7 MAC) at 1 p.m. Saturday and Eastern Michigan (3-22, 1-7 MAC) at 1 p.m. Sunday will help get them into this groove they are looking for.

"By this time of the year, we are usually in a pretty good rhythm," NIU coach Donna Martin said. "We usually are able to get some of our bench players some more at-bats, but we haven't been able to do that so far this season."

The Huskies (14-11, 4-1 MAC) lost their last time out against Western Illinois 2-1. The team had three hits, but Martin said they could not "get the big hit" when they needed one.

To help the problem with hitting this weekend, Kathy Dearborn, Lisa Mattke and Kelly Redican all look to improve on their above .300 batting averages with more hits.

The Huskies are in second place in the MAC West behind Central Michigan. They have a good chance to improve that record to 8-1 against two of the league's worst conference opponents. Toledo has the least amount of conference wins, and EMU is the third worst with five wins.

Martin said she will start senior Amy Krahula and sophomore Dearborn, but she also said that freshman Paige Granath has pitched well and should also see some innings.

"We are looking to continue winning in conference and having the same expectations as we always have," Martin said. "This weekend might not be easy, but I think that we will be alright."

There's an old baseball adage that pitching and defense wins games.

The Huskies (15-10, 3-1 MAC) hope to follow that philosophy when they face Western Michigan for a four-game series starting at 3 p.m. today in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

NIU's hurlers are second in the MAC in pitching with an ERA of 4.72 as of April 7.

"Pitching starts it," coach Ed Mathey said. "All of our pitchers have been able to set the tone and throw strikes. They've just done a great job all year."

Junior Zach Minor is leading the way with a 1.94 ERA in just more than 41 innings to go with his three victories.

While the pitchers are clicking, the Huskie defense has been struggling, committing 19 errors over their last six games. The Huskies fielding woes have put them last in the MAC with a .934 fielding percentage.

Despite winning four of those six contests, Mathey knows the importance of a strong defense.

"Making errors really puts us in a tough situation," Mathey said. "As we get into the meat of conference play, it really puts added pressure on our pitchers. We just need to focus so we make plays on a consistent level."

The Huskies will have to try and improve their lackluster defense without junior first baseman Mike Hochhauser who will be out at least two weeks with a torn right index finger incurred on April 2.

The job of replacing him will fall to a pair of freshmen: Scott Simon and Kyle Pettengell. While Simon has appeared in 19 games, many of those have been as a designated hitter.

"Obviously Mike brought a lot to the team," Mathey said. "He has been hitting real well, and he provides a lot of leadership. It's a tough break, but it's a great opportunity for two of our young guys to step up and get some quality playing time."