The court's decision in the case will have a direct impact on state schools in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and a potential ripple effect nationwide.

For the second time in three years, a federal court of appeals will be asked to decide next month whether the First Amendment is anything more than a quaint relic for America's college student media.

It is a strong but accurate summary of the stakes in a censorship case before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that pits the former editors of the student newspaper at Governors State University, a state school in Illinois, against school administrators. The court's decision in the case, Hosty v. Carter, will have a direct impact on state schools in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and a potential ripple effect nationwide.

The key issue before the court is whether a 1988 Supreme Court standard that stripped away much of the First Amendment protection of high school student media is also applicable to college student journalists. The Supreme Court explicitly declined to answer that question 15 years ago and college students have been holding their breath ever since. The Hazelwood decision, as the 1988 case is known, allows high school officials to censor many school-sponsored student publications and other forms of student expression by claiming, among other things, that they find material "poorly written," or "biased" or "inconsistent with the shared values of a civilized social order." Such vague and ridiculously broad language has made a mockery of the First Amendment in our public secondary schools where far too many principals and other school officials routinely view the student newspaper as an extension of the district's PR office, charged with writing "happy news" or no news at all.

Now, school and government officials in the Land of Lincoln are also trying to ensure such "happy news" on their college campuses. The Illinois Attorney General's Office, arguing on behalf of GSU, says that the high school standard should apply at Governors State University. It argues that no law was broken when Patricia Carter, a GSU dean, called the student newspaper's printer and ordered him not to print any more papers unless they were first approved by her or another GSU administrator.

"[The student editors] failed to show that their First Amendment rights are any greater than the limited rights accorded to the students in Hazelwood," the Attorney General unabashedly argued in his brief to the court of appeals.

"They also failed to show that the First Amendment prohibits the university from regulating the paper in any reasonable manner based on legitimate pedagogical concerns, including grammar and spelling."

This is not the first time a college has sought to rid their campus of the nuisance of free speech. The Illinois case follows a 2000 decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction covers schools in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, which rejected an attempt by Kentucky State University officials to use the Hazelwood standard to justify its confiscation of student yearbooks, which administrators claimed were of poor quality.

The court in that case cited a consistent body of case law that college student media have relied upon for over three decades and made clear its belief that the First Amendment remains a powerful protector of student free expression on America's public college and university campuses:

"[The] university environment is the quintessential 'marketplace of ideas' which merits full, or indeed heightened, First Amendment protection," the court wrote.

The college student media community, of course, hoped the Kentucky State decision would have answered the question once and for all. However, college administrators - unable to resist the apparently instinctive urge of government officials from time immemorial to suppress speech they cannot control - continue to give it the old college try.

For more information and updates on the case, see the SPLC's Hosty v. Carter Information Page at: http://www.splc.org/gsu

Visit the Student Press Law Center online at http://www.splc.org.