As incidents across college campuses spark debate on student free speech, members of the Hopkins Student Council (StuCo) are reviving demands for a comprehensive free speech policy from the administration.
In response to the use of a TASER on a student at the University of Florida during a speech by John Kerry, a student-run paper at Colorado State University (CSU) printed an editorial that read "TASER THIS ... [Explicative] BUSH."
The four-word editorial in the The Rocky Mountain Collegian has resulted in its author, editor-in-chief J. David McSwane, being brought before the University's Board of Student Communications.
The board continues to deliberate as to what, if any, punishment McSwane will receive.
According to Student Press Law Center attorney Mike Hiestand, the Board responded that although it did not approve of what McSwane printed, student editors have the right to decide the content of their own papers.
Hiestand praised this initial reaction to the CSU incident as "a very good, pro-free speech message," and condemned any potential punishments for McSwane, deeming them illegal.
Last year, Hopkins administrators came under fire from free speech advocacy groups including the ACLU (who did not respond to the News-Letter's request for a comment) for their handling of the "Halloween in the Hood" party, thrown by the Sigma Chi fraternity.
Harris criticized the University's response, stating that "while Justin Park's 'Halloween in the Hood' invitation may have offended many in the Hopkins community, it was unquestionably protected speech and the University's harsh punishment of him demonstrated a blatant disregard for students' free speech rights."
Hopkins currently follows the "Principles for Ensuring Equity, Civility and Respect for All," as a free speech policy, which states that "rude disrespectful behavior is unwelcome and will not be tolerated."
"The civility policy is the antithesis of free speech" said Evan Lazerowitz, senator of legislation on StuCo. Lazerowitz is the force behind a bill before StuCo calling for the University to look into creating a new, fairer free speech policy for the benefit of the student body.
StuCo has renewed its deliberations on a proposed free speech bill that was first read on April 24. The bill states that StuCo will never restrict students' free speech, and will ask the University to look into creation of its own new free speech policy
"The bill is somewhat a response to the things that have happened over the past couple years but it's also a good time because we don't really have problems with free speech right now so they're less passionate," Scott Bierbryer, StuCo president, said.
Bierbryer criticized the current policy as "very vague. They should have some sort of policy so it's not random."
According to Lazerowitz, the Council's constitution "forbids the control of group action except as related to observances of the law and University regulations."
While he sees this as a necessary restriction on the Council's power, Lazerowitz also noted the possibility of the University using this in conjunction with the civility policy against not just groups, but individual students. "If something violated the civility policy, it would basically allow people to be punished for something that is not illegal, but that upsets the community or is viewed as rude."
"Considering that funding comes from the University, if we were told by the University that a group could no longer be funded, I would assume that we would have to listen, rather that jeopardize the rest of the SAC groups," said Austin Nelson, treasurer for StuCo exec board and SAC chair. Nelson added that SAC does not see the content of publications before their funding is approved.
"Technically if a group does not follow the rules of school, their funding can be restricted, but I've never actually seen it happen," Bierbryer said.
Susan Boswell, Dean of Student Life, did not respond our requests for comment.
While StuCo was unable to vote on the bill without a quorum, Lazerowitz was optimistic about the bill being passed. "The only objections that were raised were on the strong wording of the bill. I expect it should pass without amendments, but we'll see"
"FIRE is appalled by CSU's decision to hold a hearing on charges against David McSwane based on the Collegian's publication of an entirely constitutionally protected article," she said.
As a public university, CSU is legally bound to uphold the First Amendment rights of its students, said Samantha Harris, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
"As you can tell from the case at CSU, this does not always mean that public universities respect their students' First Amendment rights, but unlike private universities they are legally obligated to and can be sued for failure to do so," she said.
"Students at Hopkins should have as many free speech rights as their counterparts at public institutions," Harris said. "Hopkins claims to value free speech, so to deny its students those basic rights is hypocritical and immoral."
"Private schools have the right not to follow the First Amendment. Just because they have that right doesn't mean they should use it," Lazerowitz said. "We're a university whose motto is 'The Truth Shall You Free.' This means that any truth should be expressed."
The Black and Blue Jay, the University's humor newspaper, has had no recent problems with administration. Editor-in-chief Mike Brooks said, "We are the most uncensored paper on campus because we can print curse words, which is reflective of the collegiate lifestyle," he said. "I feel that they can use us as a flag to say 'look at what we're allowed to print."
But Brooks noted that as a satirical paper, the Blue Jay can get away with more. "People know to take what we say with a grain of salt, whereas a paper like the Colorado State's would be taken more seriously."
According to Brooks, most censorship comes from fellow students because the paper's self-censorship is reflective of its awareness of the repercussions of its actions. "There are certain things we do not touch that abide by personal and social norms," he said.
Sue Lee, president of Zeniada, Hopkins' literary magazine agreed.
"We do a lot of self-auditing." While the magazine prohibits nudity in artwork, Lee said that she would defend controversial pieces if the quality of writing was high enough.
"There have been no ramifications for content that I know of. They might limit funding for the future, but I don't know," she said.
In Barbara Susan Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, the Supreme Court determined that an article entitled "Mother[explicative] Acquitted" which ran in a state university paper was, in fact, constitutionally protected speech.
In the majority ruling, the Court stated that, "the mere dissemination of ideas - no matter how offensive to good taste - on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of 'conventions of decency.'"
