By the Kincaid court's reasoning, the First Amendment - as a meaningful shield against government censorship - is now optional on some American college campuses.

You have probably heard the story by now: In 1994, Kentucky State University officials locked up about 2,000 student yearbooks because they claimed the publication's quality was poor and the yearbook's cover the wrong color. At the same time, a KSU administrator removed the student newspaper adviser from her position because she refused to censor material from the paper that the administrator believed reflected poorly on the school. The students sued and in September of this year, in Kincaid v. Gibson, a federal appellate court ruled in favor of the university. The students have asked for a rehearing and a decision on that is expected by early November.

Sorry to hear about it, I've heard many of you say, but how does that affect me? We've never had censorship problems at my school.

While the specific answer to that question can get a bit messy, here it is in a nutshell: By the Kincaid court's reasoning, the First Amendment - as a meaningful shield against government censorship - is now optional on some American college campuses.

As a practical matter, the Kincaid decision leaves it up to college administrators to decide whether or not students on their campus will be protected by the First Amendment when participating in a school-sponsored activity. Prior to Kincaid, the notion that college students working on a newspaper, performing in a play or inviting guest speakers to campus were protected by the First Amendment from undue administrative interference was presumed. The same could be said for the right of faculty members to teach in their classrooms. Now, at least in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee�the states covered by the ruling in Kincaid�that presumption no longer exists.

According to the court's decision, students involved in school-sponsored activities have no significant constitutional protection unless school officials agree to it by explicitly declaring a particular expressive activity to be a �public forum.� No such agreement by school officials, no protection from censorship.

A non-binding First Amendment is a pretty good deal for administrators. Under the new Optional First Amendment, for example, school officials can virtuously declare that they won't censor the student newspaper. They do have to keep that promise�at least until the newspaper publishes something they don't like and they decide to change school policy. Free Press Lite, if you will.

But I hear you: your administration would never do that. Maybe�but unfortunately, history has shown that where government officials have the authority to censor, they have generally exercised it. Moreover, as Kincaid ripples out from the Midwest, as legal decisions can do, the very idea that officials could censor is apt to chill certain forms of student expression at inception.

While the Kincaid court makes clear that students participating in �nonpublic forums� are still entitled to the protections of the First Amendment established by the Supreme Court in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, don't be fooled. Hazelwood mocks the First Amendment.

Sure there are legal and public relations games we can play to minimize its impact, but as high school students and faculty have known for the past decade in which Hazelwood has been the law�and as the students at Kentucky State University just found out�the First Amendment is hardly worth the paper it's printed on when school officials can censor student or faculty speech by unilaterally declaring that it violates a �poor quality� standard established by the censor himself.

For nearly 10 years I have had to break the news of the Optional First Amendment to high school student journalists. The very thought of having to introduce that message on America's college and university campuses turns my stomach.