The rights guaranteed to all citizens by the First Amendment should never be taken for granted. They are challenged continually, and if we fail to stand up to these challenges, we risk letting them be stripped away.
In an attempt to point out this fact, the editorial board of Colorado State University’s student newspaper, the Rocky Mountain Collegian, ran a four-word editorial on Sept. 21 that read, “Taser this… FUCK BUSH” in bold, 2-inch type that stretched across the entire page. This was followed by the line, “This column represents the view of the Collegian’s editorial board.”
The editors of the Collegian were pointing out what they saw as two recent challenges to our First Amendment rights.
The first was a Sept. 17 incident in which Andrew Myers, a University of Florida student, was tasered and arrested by U.F. police officers for allegedly inciting a riot during a public question-and-answer session with Sen. John Kerry (D- Mass.). Although the tone of Myers’ questions was somewhat antagonistic, Sen. Kerry attempted to answer them, even asking the officers to let him finish his reply as they attempted to take Myers into custody. The second was a proposal by President George Bush to extend eavesdropping measures for the War on Terror.
After the editorial ran, the College Republicans, a student organization at CSU, passed around a petition calling for the resignation of David McSwane, editor in chief of the Collegian. The newspaper’s advertisers threatened to pull tens of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue. It was widely rumored that he would lose his job.
However, the university’s Board of Student Communications decided on Oct. 4 to admonish McSwane for his actions, rather than remove him from his position.
The board’s decision was based on the idea that the editorial is an opinion, and therefore is protected by the First Amendment. Closer to home, William Babcock, chairman of the journalism department at California State University, Long Beach, was removed from his post following his submission of a letter to the editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram that contained criticism of a proposal by Gerry Riposa, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Riposa had proposed eliminating the print edition of the school’s newspaper, the Daily Forty-Niner, in favor of an online edition, because the print edition routinely loses large sums of money.
These stories suggest that, although Dec. 15 marks the 216th anniversary of the First Amendment, the battle to uphold these rights wages on.
Without free speech and a free press, the government could manipulate the media in order to mislead the American public, even more than it does now, with no repercussions.
As citizens, we have the right to stay informed, to speak up and to express our support or disdain for the actions of our government and our school’s administration. As journalists, we have an obligation to do so.
Although the choice of words used by the Collegian editorial board may have been rash, they had every right to print them; and though Babcock’s opinion may have been contradictory to that of Riposa, he had every right to express it. The First Amendment guarantees it.
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