Student newspaper's good will gone bad

The features staff at the Utah Statesman, the student-run newspaper at Utah State University, recently decided to devote a whole section based on the Greek life of the campus. The articles were actually based on trying to portray the Greek's in a more positive light than the usual "Animal House" stereotypes. Despite this, some of the Greek students took offense to some of the articles' comments, and felt threatened that the articles may give readers the perception that an individual involved in a Greek organization cannot also be a member of the campus' prominent Latter-day Saint (Mormon) religion.

A few vigilante Greek students adorned in Greek logo T-shirts decided to take a stand and began collecting the newspapers from the bins around campus and disposing of them in nearby recycling bins.

The potential for all kinds of criminal violations could be argued in this case. The paper could apply to freedom of the press. The advertisers in the paper could appeal to their commercial speech being restricted. Even more interesting is the potential for the Greek students to claim their conduct as speech. If the students did claim their speech as symbolic, the O'Brien test would likely be applied and the conduct would likely not be protected.

Obviously the more reasonable and simple laws to apply would be the destruction of property but the potential First Amendment situations are more interesting.

According to members on the Utah Statesman editorial staff a complaint has been filed by the newspaper to the associated student organization of the university.

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Alcohol reference bans in student newspapers exist throughout the country. The magistrate in this case not only overturned a long standing rule, but may have offered hope. Will it ignite a flood of similar cases throughout the nation?

I personally work as an advertising manager at a campus paper, and have had this issue come up a few times. My circumstance is unique because drinking, surprisingly, is not as part of the campus culture -- or the state itself -- as most other schools.

The observations I can make, as one who has worked in the business, is restrictions on certain references to alcohol in college media advertising does limit possible revenue, but mostly it just forces more creativity in developing the advertisements. Some have found ways to work around the bans.

Speech of the newspaper staff isn't necessarily limited, usually editorial content about liquor is untouched. It is definitely a question of the commercial speech of the advertisers being violated. The big question is whether or not possibly reducing underage drinking is a compelling enough reason to limit it. The magistrate in this case wasn't convinced alcohol advertisements were directly correlated to underage drinking problems.

If I were to assume my situation applies to most others, many alcohol advertisers -- whether motivated by civic obligation or commercial duty -- will limit themselves in areas where there is a concern.