In the eight years of the law's existence, no major assaults have been launched against it, but small skirmishes have tested its strength. A state-wide survey, part of a master's thesis requirements, determined if advisers do, in fact, know the law, support the law, and most importantly, teach the law. The study further examined the relationship of this data to the level of prior restraint publication staffs face. Some of the results of this study are disturbing. Almost half of the respondents are not teaching media law as a regular part of their curriculums.
Advisers do know of the law.
The second part of the survey asked advisers, who indicated they knew the law existed, to answer questions about its provisions. The results show that adviser knowledge of the state law is woefully lacking. The overall average test score for newspaper advisers and advisers of both newspapers and yearbooks was around 48 percent while yearbook advisers received an overall average test score of 43 percent. In the final section of the survey, advisers' test scores were correlated to 29 belief statements, similar to those found in the book Journalism Kids Do Better. In every instance where prior restraint was at question, advisers with lower test scores showed higher levels of prior restraint for their publications than did advisers with higher test scores.