Prior Restraint and a Fundamental Disrespect

No edition of The Innovator has been printed since Carter issued her edict. Not, I assume, because she keeps killing the paper, but because the staff won't work under prior restraint. Basically, they're on strike. That's beside the point, however. The primary points upon which I shall focus in this rant is the fundamental disrespect and intrinsic contempt Carter and her ilk must feel for the students at Governors State University as well the the tack the court took in some of its questioning.

Disrespect and Contempt

First off, these aren't kids we are talking about by any stretch of the imagination. One of the plaintiffs is 24, one is 31, and one is 35[1]. Even if the majority of the students on campus are younger, most of them will be at least 18 years old. A legal adult in most jurisdictions. Yet, the school administration insists on treating them like children, and especially stupid children at that. To my way of thinking, the underlying cause driving incidents similar to this one -- particularly at the high school level -- is an attitude that the students can't possibly know enough to make informed choices or exercise good judgement. They must, at all times, be under the supervision of someone "older and wiser". There are at least three fatal fallacies in this attitude.

First off, older does not necessarily mean wiser. Neither knowledge or experience alone -- or together even -- constitute wisdom. Wisdom is an entirely separate attribute. The greater one's knowledge and experience the greater one's ability to practice wisdom. However, the desire to be wise is not instinctual; it does not just happen. Wisdom is not a passive process that kicks in automatically at some point -- definable or otherwise -- in time. It is an active growth process which the subject must initiate and encourage at all times. And the first step along the path to wisdom is to acknowledge how little you yourself actually know. And that first step cannot be taken by someone who believes that his or her knowledge is sufficiently comprehensive to make choices for other people.

Secondly, a student cannot learn if he is forbidden to do things for himself. It is not a teacher's place to shove a student aside and complete an assignment because the teacher doesn't like the look of it or thinks the student is doing it wrong. The teacher's place is to guide the student, but to allow the student to make his own choices and errors. As the old saying goes, "experience is the best teacher." And it is well known that you sharpen a skill through constant use.

Thirdly, children are not stupid just because they are uneducated. Their minds are similar to dry sponges: mostly empty, but eager to suck up knowledge and expand. Most grown-ups, however, equate ignorance with stupidity. They believe that just because a child does not yet have the necessary frame of reference to deal with an issue, the child is unable to deal with the issue[2]. So instead of exposing the child -- or student as the case may be -- to such issues in a controlled environment, they shield the child from all exposure to such issues.

The first of these fallacies keeps a person from personal growth and development; the other two stunt the growth of others.

Aside from these arguments, it is also demoralizing to work for some damn' fool idjit who is constantly looking over your shoulder. These people are the worse kind of boss for which to work. Intrinsically, they delegate to a subordinate the authority to do a job, but withhold the responsibility that must necessarily go along with it. The subordinate generally feels as if he is in some kind of working limbo; neither here nor there. Such conditions create a very stressful environment. More importantly, there is a very clear demonstration of a lack of trust and respect in the subordinate and his skills and abilities.

Editing is not Censorship

It was reported at Student Press Law Center that the three-judge panel[3] of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals followed an odd line of questioning during oral arguments: Would it really offend the First Amendment if a school required prior review of the newspaper only for grammatical or spelling errors. (I believe the judge meant prior restraint.)

A review process already exists, and it is used by every newspaper, commercial or academic. It is called editing, and the purpose of an editor is to edit for length, accuracy in reporting, and clarity; which last one covers spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This, however, is not censorship[4]. Strictly speaking, it is not even selection, although it resembles that more than it does censorship. Editing is a matter of quality control. Prior review, however, is not about quality control, it is about information (content) control. In prior review, a censor reviews the content of the paper for facts better left suppressed or opinions better left unvoiced[5]. Now, I think in pursuing this line of questioning the judges caught the lawyers off guard. The counsel for the defense, Dick Goehler, said that prior review of grammar and spelling -- what one judge referred to as "structure" -- could not be separated from "substance"[6]. A statement with which I do not agree. But the key here is that he apparently did not bring up the idea of quality control or point out that all newspapers edit.

The judges were not seeking an excuse to enforce prior review, though. They also told the counsel for the plaintiff that no evidence existed to suggest that the The Innovator was more error prone than any other newspaper.

Miscellaneity

There are a couple of other things I'd like to expound upon. Assistant Attorney General Mary Welsh, arguing for Dean Carter, brought up the ruling of Hazelwood v. Kulhmeier, although she also mentioned Kincaid v. Gibson, which was reversed by the full Sixth Circuit court in favor of free speech for college students[7]. In my not so humble opinion, Hazelwood cannot possibly be a factor in this ruling. A university is not a high school by any stretch of the imagination.

The SPLC article said that Welsh asked the court to provide "guidance" on the issue that would clarify the application of the First Amendment on college campuses because, she said, the law was so "unsettled." Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. The law is actually very clear and precise in this issue to my way of thinking: Congress shall make no law [...] abridging [...] the freedom of the press. And I firmly believe that includes all press; not commercial press alone.

FOOTNOTES:

[01] Reporter Steven Barba, 24; editor Jeni Porche, 31; managing editor Margaret Hosty, 35.
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[02] Which is another egregious piece of bovine scatology. Children are both a great deal tougher and more resilient emotionally than we give them credit for. There are plenty of children on a daily basis who must to deal with tragedy. And they do.
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[03] Judges John L. Coffey, Ilana Diamond Rovner, and Terence T. Evans.
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[04] That doesn't mean, however, that censorship is never invoked during the editing process. Stories are sometimes killed by "editorial decision", or the writing can be slanted to misrepresent and create negative affective connotations. Whether that constitutes censorship or is merely unethical is a question best left to another rant for now.
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[05] Better left suppressed or unvoiced from the viewpoint of the censor, that is.
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[06] In this case, I interpret structure as being presentation, and substance as content. Two articles about the same event can both be factually correct (even with the exclusion of inconvenient facts), and yet present the event in diametrically opposed light depending on how the articles are slanted. In terms of semantics, the information is presented in such a way as to lead the reader to arrive at a specific, biased conclusion about the event. When the article is structured to bias the reader against the event, it is written with negative affective connotations. See my letter to National Coalition Against Censorship about just such a case.
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[07] The article does not say in what context she mentioned Kincaid, however. She might have used the overturned ruling to bolster her argument for prior review since the full Sixth Circuit court decision wouldn't apply in the Seventh Circuit; a whole other jurisdiction. Neither does the ruling that was reversed, of course, but the purpose of bringing up the restrictive decision is to sway the court in favour of censorship, hence, she would have mentioned the ruling that was reversed, but not the reversal. It was reported that she did not mention thirty years of case law in favour of free speech.
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