Can The University Of Kentucky Ban Student Newspaper From Being Distributed At Its Stadium?
from the hello-first-amendment dept
College sports have become a big business. That's no secret. We see it all the time, and at times that's used to stifle elements of free speech, such as in making fan-created t-shirts and such illegal. Now it's going even further. Romenesko points us to the news that the University of Kentucky, a state-funded university, has banned the distribution of a free student newspaper at the University's Commonwealth Stadium before football games. Apparently, UK has a marketing contract with sports licensing giant IMG, which they believe gives IMG a monopoly on any media efforts around the stadium. Of course, plenty of folks are pointing out that this is a pretty clear First Amendment problem. It's a public government-owned entity, forbidding the distribution of speech. The contract with IMG is meaningless as you can't contract away others' free speech rights. It sounds like folks are gearing up for a legal challenge here, which should be worth following.
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Filed Under: contracts, free speech, journalism, university of kentucky
Companies: img
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College sports are not business. You go wrong first sentence.
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Re: College sports are not business. You go wrong first sentence.
Make up your mind... are they making money or not? If they are making money, they are a business in the sense of the word that Mike was using. Are the a corporation with an office in NYC's financial district? Probably not. But they are being managed and marketed in such a way as to make money... like a business.
And the student newspaper won't have to cave because it's a case of, as Mike put it, "a public government-owned entity, forbidding the distribution of speech." While I disagree with his use of a comma in that sentence, the gist of the sentence is spot on.
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No the only UK speech problem
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Re: No the only UK speech problem
There are a LOT of things that businesses try to 'sneak' into agreements that are BLATANTLY illegal.
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but..
Can The University Of Kentucky Ban Student Newspaper From Being Distributed At Its Stadium?
HELL NO fight the good fight.
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Re: Speech
> they're simply saying you cannot distribute the newspaper *at this
> location*. The publishers are perfectly free to go elsewhere to
> distribute newspapers.
So if the president was giving a speech and the police banned all protesters anywhere near the site of the speech, that would be okay because they're not saying the protesters can't speak, they just can't speak anywhere near the president; they're free to go somewhere else and speak... would that be legal?
[Hint: there's about 200+ years of Supreme Court 1st Amendment jurisprudence that says it would not be legal.]
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Re: Re: Speech
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Re: Re: Re: Speech
> where rallies for the major political parties are held, right?
Not any more. Those were common back in the 1990s and the ACLU sued the crap out of local and federal law enforcement. The courts have ruled that absent a specific threat of violence protesters must be treated just like the general public and anywhere mom, dad and the kids can go, a protester can go.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Speech
Of course it's a whole lot of bull anyhow - the idea that you can be blocked from saying what you want is valid on private property (I don't need to let anyone who is in my house to say whatever they want, I can kick em out), but allowing a gov't entity to do so in any way is supremely disturbing.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speech
That's what you get for trusting Wikipedia instead of finding out the full facts. Sure there were protest areas set up at both conventions in 2004, but protesters weren't required to *only* protest there or face punishment, as illustrated by the fact that there were plenty of protests outside those special areas and the protesters were not arrested or sanctioned for doing it.
> And more recently, from Wed Aug 06, 2008, Federal Judge
> Upholds Denver Convention Protest Zone
Again, the protest area was provided as a courtesy at the Denver site but protesters were not required to protest only in that area. It was actually a carve-out of the secure perimeter around the convention center. The protesters were mad that the secure perimeter was so vast that they couldn't get close enough to be heard by the delegates. Even though the court had already approved the Secret Service and Denver PD perimeter as constitutional, they went the extra mile and carved out a special area into the secure perimeter which allowed the protesters to get closer than they would have otherwise. It was something law enforcement didn't have to do and the protesters weren't required to use it.
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Re: Re: Speech
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Re: Re: Re: Speech
> statement relevant to the football game, I would expect that would
> make the 1st Amendment claim much stronger
Actually, that would make the state's actions even more suspect because that would mean the state is picking and choosing which kind of speech and which messages are more important and more deserving of protection than others.
Content-based restrictions on speech are almost never upheld.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Speech
The courts do that all the time. Political speech gets far more protection than commercial speech, for example.
Content-based restrictions on speech are almost never upheld.
What you say cannot enter into it (ie whether anybody agrees with your speech or not). The category of speech absolutely does.
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Re:
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Getting technical...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Key words there are "Congress shall make no law". Everyone else can do what they want, under the first amendment.
Of course, a huge amount of supreme court case law has dramatically altered this, so that is applies to pretty much any government entity, at any time, in any way. I know that here at Penn State, they have established "free speech zones" on campus, but if you actually ask them about it, they'll tell you that they can't limit your speech anywhere on campus, those zones are just where such expression is _encouraged_. But anyway, I'm getting off topic. Point is, if they sued, they would probably win.
@Chris-Mouse: Tinker v. Des Moines would disagree with you there...as would several other supreme court rulings. If it's private property, sure, they could boot the students for trespassing. But it's not, it's a public school.
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Re: Getting technical...
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Re: Re: Getting technical...
> MANY MANY times to mean that NO ONE could interfere with
> another person's right to free speech.... whether on pubic OR
> PRIVATE property.
Baloney. If you walk up my driveway and stand on my front lawn and start chanting about your personal issues, I can kick you the hell off my property and infringe on your free speech rights all I want.
If I'm having a party and you start spouting off about politics and annoying the rest of my guests, I can kick you out the door and if you refuse to leave or try and come back, I can have you arrested for trespassing. Nothing in the 1st Amendment would prevent that from happening.
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Re: Speech
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Re:
http://kykernel.com/2010/10/14/uk-stops-kernel-distribution-at-stadium/
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Speech
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Re: Speech
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freedom of expression is guaranteed, but not absolute
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