Craven Community College: Attempt to Establish Administrative Control over Student Newspaper

Category: Free Speech
Schools: Craven Community College

Shortly after a student newspaper introduced a sex column, the administration announced a policy of prior of review for the paper. FIRE and the Student Press Law Center protested this unconstitutional policy. The administration then retracted its proposed policy and affirmed the First Amendment rights of student journalists on its campus.

  • Out of the briar patch

    July 19, 2005

    Sex isn’t Scott Ralls’ problem anymore. It’s been a problem for the previous four months. Ralls is president of Craven Community College in New Bern, where in March a column offering tips on how to “jolt tired sex lives” was published in the campus newspaper, to the dismay of some readers. But Ralls expects the sex problem to end this week — whereupon he can tend to more typical campus needs, such as making sure there’s not enough parking or seeing that political correctness is rigidly enforced. Note to Ralls: I’m teasing, Scott. I tease because I love. Actually, I […]

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  • Victory for Press Freedom at Craven Community College

    June 22, 2005

    NEW BERN, N.C., June 22, 2005—In a victory for freedom of the student press, North Carolina’s Craven Community College has agreed to respect the independence of its student newspaper, The Communicator. Reacting to controversy over a short-lived sex column, Craven had initially (and erroneously) claimed the college was “not authorized to provide its students an independent and open forum,” and had been considering granting prior editorial review of the paper to college administrators. But thanks to protests from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), Craven now affirms its students’ First Amendment […]

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