Attorney advocates for college media are claiming that some university administrators, police and student government associations are engaging in illegal activity toward their student newspapers.
Those illegal or questionable actions, reports USA Today, include administrators shutting down a paper over covering an explicit sex issue, campus public safety officials who refuse to provide criminal records, student government associations that cut print funding to retaliate against student media and institutions of higher education that avoid open-records laws when conducting searches for presidents.
Although many institutions are very supportive of their student-run media, the Associated Press’ experience with the Justice Departments seizure of its reporters’ and editors’ phone records has put a spotlight on school newspapers and their access to information.
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