Abstract

On February 21, 2006, the Supreme Court denied certiorari to Margaret L. Hosty, Jeni S. Porche, and Steven P. Barba, former student editors and staff writers of Illinois’ Governors State University (“GSU”) student newspaper, the Innovator. By denying their petition, the Court effectively ended the trio’s five-year legal battle in which they sought 42 U.S.C. § 1983 relief from Patricia Carter, Dean of Students at GSU. The students had argued that Dean Carter’s actions, which effectively required that they submit prospective issues of the Innovator to her office for administrative approval before going to press, violated their First Amendment rights by creating a prior restraint on speech. In a June 2005 en banc opinion of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned the appellate court’s earlier panel decision, Judge Easterbrook held that Hazelwood School  District v. Kuhlmeier, a case traditionally deemed to concern only secondary and elementary educational settings, provides a framework for limiting speech that applies to subsidized student newspapers at colleges and universities. ...

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2007

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