From Inside Higher
Ed (https://www.insidehighered.com)
A college tells faculty it's illegal to speak to student
journalists
Submitted by Ry
Rivard on November 13, 2014 - 3:00am
Administrators
at a Florida community college are leaning on faculty and student journalists
to prevent coverage of an ongoing labor dispute.
In doing so,
they are adopting a questionable interpretation of Florida law that could be
used to squelch student journalism in high schools and colleges across the
Sunshine State.
Administrators
at the 11,000-student Pensacola State College have told faculty members they
are violating state law [1] by speaking with student journalists about
contract negotiations, which are currently at an impasse.
In response,
the faculty union said the administrators are
harassing union members [2]. An editor at the student newspaper said the
college’s president is also lying about the paper’s reporting.
Administrators
at Pensacola are using a section of state code that has been ruled
unconstitutional by both a state and a federal court. The code is intended to
prohibit unions from using students to promote union activities. If
Pensacola’s reading of the law is heeded, the administration’s effort could
provide a way to choke off student reporting on labor disputes at educational
institutions across the state.
Most
journalists would argue that quoting union officials is not equivalent to
promoting their cause.
"What
we’re trying to ensure is that students are not embroiled in labor matters at
an institution and we’re trying to ensure that faculty do not use their
position with students,” said Pensacola State President Ed Meadows.
Meadows said he
is not sure why it is important for students to put information about the
dispute into the paper in the first place. In his view, faculty pay and hours
don’t affect students.
The student
paper, Meadows said, can write about other things, like student awards,
basketball games, crime, opinions and “non-college things.”
If students
want to read about the labor dispute, Meadows said, they can read about it in
the local newspaper. But he noted that the local paper didn’t pick up a story
about the impasse. “If the local media doesn’t find it of interest, then why
would students find it of interest, and of what benefit would it be for
students to know?”
An editor and
reporter at the Pensacola State paper, The Corsair [3], both disagreed. The terms under which
faculty work are likely to affect students at the college, they said.
“The whole
thing together could affect the students if it affects the teachers,” said
writer Abigail Megginson.
Indeed, faculty
and administrator relations are one of the bread-and-butter topics of student
journalism.
The controversy
began when the paper’s editor, Spenser Garber, began working on stories about
the labor impasse. So far, he’s only published one [4]. That was on Oct. 31. The same
day, an outside attorney for the college wrote a letter to the faculty union,
the United Faculty of Florida. The attorney told the union it was inappropriate
for its members to speak with student journalists about union business.
The attorney,
Michael Mattimore, cited a provision of state code that forbids unions from
“instigating or advocating” support for union activities from K-12 and college
students.
“Specifically,”
his letter said, “the faculty is seeking to involve the student newspaper, The
Corsair, in the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations and the faculty’s
actions associated with that labor dispute.”
Mattimore, a
former chairman of Florida’s Public Employees Relations Commission, is
well-positioned to know about that section of the code. In 1991 – when he was
chairman of the commission – the paragraph of state code on which his letter
relies was overruled by two courts on
the same day, a federal district court and a state court of appeal [5]. The law violated the United
Faculty of Florida’s First Amendment rights, according to the twin rulings. The
commission, led by Mattimore, was using the law to try to punish the union for
purchasing newspaper ads in the student newspaper at Florida International
University in an effort to rally students behind the union.
Adam Goldstein,
attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center, said he would assist the
Pensacola student newspaper if the college didn’t recognize that its efforts
were unconstitutional. He questioned Mattimore’s letter on behalf of the
college’s administration.
“It’s either a
case of extremely bad memory or sinister intent – I tend to remember the cases
I lost,” Goldstein said.
In an email,
Mattimore said his letter did have a footnote making clear his interpretation
had been “questioned” by courts, but he said the law – which remains on the
books – still “reflects the intent of the authors of the statute.”
“Involving
students in a pay dispute is clearly inappropriate,” he said.
Goldstein said
laws that have been overruled don’t just evaporate from state code, but that
doesn’t mean they can be used or enforced. Florida still has on the books [6] a law that forbids media from
naming rape victims, even though enforcement of the law was ruled unconstitutional by
the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 [7].
At Pensacola,
President Meadows’s view is that the student journalists are union pawns and
coverage of the labor dispute will only “distract students from their studies.”
Meadows said
that Garber, the newspaper editor, could not have even begun to look into the
matter unless he was approached by faculty. That, in Meadows view, is an
unethical action.
Garber said he
first heard about the labor dispute from someone who doesn’t even work at the
college.
“The faculty
definitely didn’t encourage me to do this story. That’s a lie,” Garber said in
a telephone interview. After he interviewed faculty, Garber said, he approached
the administration for comment. That’s when administrators began to suggest he
was acting illegally by breaking an unnamed federal law.
Goldstein, who
has spoken with newspaper representatives, said the administration is trying to
come at the student journalists in two directions: by choking off their
access to faculty and by accusing student journalists themselves of violating
fair labor practices.
“I’ve seen a lot
of unconstitutional arguments and I’ve seen a lot of silly arguments, but it’s
the first time I’ve seen that non-employees are capable of unfair labor
practice, which is just a neat trick logically,” he said.
Meadows said
even though the administration is not prevented from speaking with students
about the labor impasse, he had declined to answer Garber’s questions about the
dispute. That, Meadows said, means the paper can’t do a fair story even if it
persists in speaking to faculty, because the paper won’t have the
administration’s side of the story.
As Meadows said
he told the newspaper’s staff adviser, who has since left the college and could
not be reached for comment, “Good journalism requires two sides to every story
and, unfortunately, I can’t give you the other side."
Links:
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1359038-letter-from-mm-re-corsair-article.html
[2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1359039-11102014-response-to-mm-re-pscfa.html
[3] http://ecorsair.com/
[4] http://ecorsair.com/pscfa-straw-poll-shows-potential-no-confidence-vote-in-president-meadows/
[5] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=%22United+Faculty+of+Florida+v.+Sloan%22&hl=en&as_sdt=20006&case=3808459847375486667&scilh=0
[6] http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/794.03
[7] http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1988/1988_87_329
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1359038-letter-from-mm-re-corsair-article.html
[2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1359039-11102014-response-to-mm-re-pscfa.html
[3] http://ecorsair.com/
[4] http://ecorsair.com/pscfa-straw-poll-shows-potential-no-confidence-vote-in-president-meadows/
[5] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=%22United+Faculty+of+Florida+v.+Sloan%22&hl=en&as_sdt=20006&case=3808459847375486667&scilh=0
[6] http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/794.03
[7] http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1988/1988_87_329