Under legislation passed in California's State Assembly last week, public college officials would have limited ability to censor student-run newspapers. The bill provides protection for college journalists and their free-speech rights. The one piece of content college officials would be able to regulate is hate speech. \nWe like the idea of furthering laws to protect the journalist's right to publish content that the university might or might not agree with. Regardless of whether the university is funding the college newspaper or not, it's still the job of college journalists to ensure their university is transparent. College journalists should serve as the watch-dogs for the administrations at public-colleges, in the same way the media should serve as watch-dogs to the government.\nWhile we agree with core principle behind the bill, we wonder who will determine what is "hate speech." If there is a column in one of these collegiate newspapers spouting off that "all females should be burned alive," we can recognize the inherent hate. But by giving university officials the right to discipline students for publishing hate speech, you give them the right to determine what hate speech is. At that point, who's to say the administration won't find fault with asserting that the university could do better with student relations?
DISSENT\nDespite the overtones of censorship that follow every time a school wants to regulate its student newspaper's content, the issue comes down to a fundamental matter of fairness. If a university funds a student publication, the public can hardly cry foul if the administration wants to shape that publication's coverage.\nMuckraking student journalism is key in keeping a university's administration transparent, but administrators are not likely to tolerate a paper funded within the university's budget that disparages its performance. The unfortunate (but logical) outcome of a Supreme Court decision forcing universities to give up their ability to direct content would be for those schools to cut funding to offending papers. For the sake of keeping papers open, a court decision that limits the schools' privileges is the worst possible resolution.\nIt sounds harsh, but student newspapers can only become independent of their host university if they manage to fund themselves. Despite the cliché of the expression, it comes down to the fact that you can't have your cake and eat it, too. If a paper relies on the funding of an institution it chooses to criticize, that paper's editors shouldn't be surprised if the institution objects.\nIt's not impossible: the Indiana Daily Student is fully self-sufficient via advertising revenue. Even the space in the School of Journalism is rented. University administrators do not have the final word determining our coverage because it is produced entirely independently of them. Maybe it's an unfair comparison given the size of our school, but it goes to show that it is possible.\n-- Nate Bethea
