Advisers under fire spark student press freedom concerns

UMass Dartmouth recently rescinded the student newspaper adviser’s contract, and student journalists suspect the decision is part of a broader effort to quell their coverage. 

When student journalists publish work that makes administrators uncomfortable, their advisers increasingly seem to pay the price. Just weeks ago, a Colorado high school reassigned a student newspaper adviser after students published controversial content. And last year, Indiana University was at the center of a student press firestorm when it fired longtime adviser Jim Rodenbush after allegedly ordering him to censor his own students. 

At public institutions, student press law protections aren’t only important for student journalists. They are integral for advisers facing pushback and retaliation. Nor are these protections unrelated. Advisers often serve as bulwarks protecting the rights of student journalists.

Student journalists at UMass Dartmouth’s The Torch speak out

At UMass Dartmouth, student reporters for The Torch have spent the last year trying to ask administrators hard questions. Questions about the university’s response to a January snowstorm, its use of AI in marketing materials, and now, why the university withdrew their adviser and journalism professor’s contract.

Although a UMass Dartmouth administrator told The New Bedford Light, which broke the story, that the decision to not renew former Torch adviser Natalie Pattillo’s contract was based on budget concerns, the situation raises a significant student press law problem that comes up again and again: What protections exist for advisers?

Taking aim at student media advisers

Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of examples of school officials or administrators taking their issues with a student publication out on that outlet’s adviser. The troubling trend dates back decades. For example, in 2006, Le Moyne College dismissed its college newspaper adviser for not exercising control over student content. When the student newspaper at Fairmont State University reported on toxic mold in student dorms in 2015, the university responded by firing the faculty adviser. And last year, FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative joined a coalition of student media advocates decrying IU’s removal of its student media adviser.

When pressure is put on advisers, it can bleed into the newsrooms they serve. This indirect censorship may look subtle, but it is a real threat.

The trend doesn’t only affect college newsrooms. At Grand Junction High School, student leaders of the Orange & Black newspaper raised concerns that school officials reassigned their adviser because of the paper’s content — specifically, an op-ed about Palestinians, coverage about a lawsuit involving the school, and a photo of students wearing white shirts for a “White Lies”-themed football game in which one student’s shirt read “I Hate Milfs.”

Student media advisers, regardless of the setting, occupy a valuable — and sometimes vulnerable — legal position. They advise student journalists, protect students’ editorial independence, and answer to the administrators who employ them. But when pressure is put on advisers, it can bleed into the newsrooms they serve. This indirect censorship may look subtle, but it is a real threat.

What protections exist for advisers?

Adviser protections come in the form of a patchwork of legal principles that draw from state statutes and First Amendment court decisions. The most robust legal protections for advisers come from state “New Voices” statutes. Now 18 states have passed New Voices laws, and in Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, California, New Jersey, North Dakota, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington, student journalism advisers have explicit protection from retaliation — though some statutes specify those protections are guaranteed only for K-12 or college and university advisers.

Typically, New Voices protections for advisers prohibit firing or demotions, reassignments, reductions of pay, or other retaliatory actions taken by administrators because the adviser protected students’ lawful editorial decisions or speech protected by law.

The First Amendment has also provided a shield for advisers fired in retaliation for student newspapers’ content. For example, in the 2006 case Coppola v. Larson, New Jersey college journalists published articles critical of a university policy, prompting a university administrator to tell student editors to “show restraint” in their future news coverage. When students responded by writing an editorial about the administrator’s intimidating comments, their adviser received a letter of termination. A district court granted injunctive relief to keep administrators from removing the adviser, noting “such a retaliatory removal would . . . have an impermissibly chilling effect” on student editors’ expression.

But in other instances, courts have been wary to accept retaliation arguments. In 2015, a district court in Iowa denied Muscatine Community College student journalists’ request for the same injunctive relief granted in Coppola after administrators removed their adviser. There, the student journalists tried to tie the adviser’s removal to unwanted news stories, but the court disagreed.

But where constitutional arguments may fall short, the strong adviser protections found in some New Voices statutes have withstood scrutiny in court. California’s student free expression law provided the foundation for a major victory when a state court held Lowell High School must reinstate a previously ousted adviser.

The cost of retaliation

In some instances, retaliation has been costly for institutions. In 2006, the removal of Barton County Community College student media adviser resulted in a $130,000 settlement agreement after the adviser launched a retaliation lawsuit against the school. In 2012, after FIRE warned East Carolina University that firing its student newspaper adviser in retaliation for publishing an uncensored photo of a streaker at a football game was a First Amendment violation, ECU and the adviser announced they had reached a $31,200 settlement. When the cost of censorship is that steep, institutions have all the more reason to steer clear of pressuring publications through adviser retaliation.

Let advisers be student media advocates, free from pressure

The best student media advisers staunchly defend their students’ free expression rights. And they shouldn’t be punished for being advocates for the students they advise. The College Media Association’s Code of Ethics provides that advisers must “defend and teach without censoring.” 

That’s for good reason: student journalists learn best when they are permitted to create their own work, not when they are chilled from doing so. While state statutes and First Amendment law can protect advisers after retaliation has occurred, the chilling effect on the student journalists they serve can linger. Allowing for advisers to support their student newsrooms without fear of retribution isn’t just best practice — it’s the only path toward a free press on campuses.