Delaying tactic

Students: Got a problem with the University? Don’t worry – given enough time, the problem will go away. No, it won’t be solved. But after a few years, you’ll graduate and won’t be around to complain about it. So no more problem, right? Right.\nLast Thursday, this view was upheld by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Editors from Kansas State University’s student newspaper the Kansas State Collegian had sued the school for violating their free speech rights when the university fired the Collegian’s faculty advisor over the administration’s disapproval of the paper’s content. (The latter was determined through an investigation by College Media Advisors, a student media support and advocacy group.) But the firing, and subsequent lawsuit, occurred in 2004 – and this is 2007. The editors have since graduated from Kansas State. Student journalists graduating? Madness, I know. \nThus, the 10th Circuit ruled that because they are no longer students, the suit was moot because “there is no reasonable expectation that (they) will be subjected, post-graduation, to censorship by defendants in connection with that paper.” \nSo, if you take a university to court over your rights as a student, all they have to do is delay the legal process until you graduate. Then your claims are binned.\nI’m far from being a legal scholar, but this result has me wondering how far this ruling can apply to other cases. For example, if your school is not sufficiently handicap-accessible, and you sue based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, can the administration simply hold out until you graduate? Likewise, what if you’re at a school that fails to fund women’s sports sufficiently under Title IX? Or, how about, if you have a professor who discriminates against you based on your race, gender, religion, political beliefs, etc.? The ADA and Title IX have proven, time and again, to be solid bases for suits against universities – but, then again, they’re hardly as fundamental to our legal system as the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. \nThis ruling by the 10th Circuit merely reinforces a favorite response by administrations to any sort of controversy that could be expensive, contentious or otherwise uncomfortable to sort out: Make a show of creating a task force or advisory group and, after a long investigation, have them produce a report. If people are still interested by the report’s release, make some superficial changes, give a speech, have a photo op, perhaps, then let things drift back to business as usual.\nEven hoping that the 10th Circuit’s ruling is overturned in an appeal – what can students do to achieve lasting change, given such a turnover? My recommendation is that students take advantage of the technologies that are already changing our lives: social networking connections between alumni and current students, searchable databases and archives to preserve organizational memory and so on. \nOtherwise, all you can do is try to achieve as much as you can before you’re gone. The clock is ticking.