Opinion ID: 1426237
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The College Voice Constituted a Limited Public Forum

Text: Under even the less protective approach for evaluating the scope of the First Amendment rights afforded student media outlets and the students journalists who work on them, it is clear that the College Voice was a limited public forum in which (subject always to the existence of a compelling state interest such as the maintenance of public order) the only permissible restriction was on the speakers who could participate. CSI, through the student government, chartered the College Voice and provided the newspaper with most of its funding through the allocation of student activity fees. The defendants agree that neither CUNY nor CSI had placed any restrictions on the subjects that could be covered in the College Voice or other student publications. Indeed, in earlier litigation before this court, CUNY expressly disclaim[ed] any right of the institution to control student publications, such as those financed through student activity fees. Leeds, 85 F.3d at 54. Accordingly, the policy and practice of CSI demonstrate that the school intended to open the pages of the College Voice to indiscriminate use by the students who serve as its contributors and editors, and that it thereby created a public forum in which the only limit involved the nature of permissible speakers. See Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators ' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 47, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983). Because the College Voice operated as such a forum, CSI and its officials could not, under the First Amendment, take adverse action against the student newspaper, including engaging in conduct designed to chill the speech contained in future editions, on the basis of the views expressed in the publication unless such action served a compelling government interest. See Hotel Emples. & Rest. Emples. Union, 311 F.3d at 545. The defendants have offered no arguments that the nullification of the May 1997 election advanced any such interest, and we can conceive of no interest of sufficient import to justify President Springer's actions given the First Amendment concerns involved. See infra note 14. ii. President Springer Canceled the Spring 1997 Election Because of the Viewpoint Expressed in the May 1997 Issue of the College Voice In its May 1997 issue, the College Voice clearly sought to express a viewpoint on the Spring 1997 election. This viewpoint was reflected both in the election-related content contained in the issue and in the manner in which that content was presented. The substance of the College Voice 's election-related material made clear the newspaper's support for the positions taken by the Student Union and its belief that the candidates on that slate should be elected. In order to emphasize the strength of its view that the student body should elect candidates who supported running CSI in the manner advocated by the Student Union, the College Voice devoted almost its entire front cover and its complete back cover to promoting the election of candidates running on that slate, and included in the May 1997 issue the slate's platform statement as well as various exhortations urging the slate's election. Remarks and testimony made by President Springer reveal that it was the College Voice 's viewpoint on the election  expressed in both the substance of its content and in the manner in which that content was presented  that led her to nullify the election. First, in announcing her decision, Springer noted the aspects of the May 1997 issue of the College Voice that caused her to nullify the initial Spring 1997 election included its cover [that] boldly encourage[ed] a vote for a particular slate of candidates and her assessment that much of the issue was devoted to supporting an endorsed slate of candidates. President Springer's testimony also shows that she nullified the election because of the viewpoint expressed by the College Voice. The following exchange occurred during President Springer's deposition: Q: Is it your opinion that the College Voice has an obligation to present both sides of an issue? A: Not any issue. Certainly they have a right to their opinion on issues, but as far as student elections is concerned, yes. Q: Could you be very specific . . . I don't . . . want to mischaracterize your testimony. Are you saying that the College Voice is required to have a balanced coverage of student elections? A: Yes. Q: Okay. Could you describe what is your understanding of balanced? A: Presenting both slates. Q: When you say presenting both slates, could the College Voice favor one slate over the other and say so in writing? Could they publish that? A: It depends on whether it was a small statement in an editorial or whether it was part of their whole issue. Q: So, is it your testimony then that the College Voice could appropriately endorse candidates if it was done in appropriate context? A: Yes. If the candidates were fairly presented on both sides of the slate. If it were a one-piece campaign literature, then no. Q: So, you're saying one of your requirements . . . for fairness in coverage is to present both sides; is that correct? A: If  yes, and honestly. Q: . . . [Y]ou also said . . . there would be some differences as to how prominently the College Voice voiced its opinion. Is that a fair characterization of your testimony? A: It could well be, yes. . . . Q: . . . Is the decision to publish an opinion on the front page with a big headline as opposed to on a back  on page 10 with a small headline, is that decision fundamentally reflecting an opinion about how important the story is? A: I think in journalist practices it would be in that sense. But is it the editor's right to do that under these particular situations where we have regulations governing the campaign literature, no. This exchange shows that President Springer's nullification of the election due to the May 1997 issue of the College Voice was premised on two types of viewpoint discrimination relating to the subject of student elections. First, Springer's action was driven by her belief that only one perspective was acceptable for speech on student elections in a student newspaper  a viewpoint that reflected a balanced view of the candidates  and that contrary views  including that certain candidates should be elected  were inappropriate. Second, Springer's testimony reveals that her nullification of the initial election was premised on her belief that the College Voice 's view as to the importance of electing the Student Union slate, as reflected in the presentation of the content promoting those candidates, was improper and should be excluded from the limited public forum of the student newspaper. That the views on the student election, expressed through the substance and presentation of the content in the May 1997 issue, led to Springer's conduct is further supported by comments made by a CUNY associate general counsel during the preliminary injunction hearing before the magistrate judge. There, the CUNY attorney stated, I think if this happened again in . . . the April 2000 elections and this identical issue came out, something [looking] like this and a student appealed, I think the Court should have a reasonable expectation the same thing would happen. The election results would be voided. The CUNY attorney further told the magistrate judge that one way the College Voice could avoid such retaliation against its speech in the future would be to submit its content to the SERC for pre-publication review. Such viewpoint discrimination is clearly impermissible in a limited public forum open to unrestricted speech on campaigns, candidates, and issues affecting CUNY. Indeed, as the Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly emphasized, once a state institution opens a limited forum to speech on a particular topic, it may not act against a speaker in that forum on the basis of views they express on that topic. See Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (finding that the state may not exercis[e] viewpoint discrimination, even when the limited public forum is one of its own creation and noting that viewpoint discrimination . . . is presumed impermissible when directed against speech otherwise within the forum's limitations); see also Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 106-07, 121 S.Ct. 2093; Peck, 426 F.3d at 626; Hotel Emples. & Rest. Emples. Union, 311 F.3d at 545. Yet, that is exactly what happened here: the College Voice was a limited public forum open to speech related to the Spring 1997 election and to which candidates should be elected, the College Voice expressed views on those subjects in its May 1997 issue, and Springer, by canceling the election, engaged in adverse action because of the views the newspaper offered. [14] iii. The Defendants' Arguments For Why President Springer's Actions Did Not Violate the First Amendment Are Unavailing a. The Nullification of the Election Created a Chilling Effect and Thus Violated the First Amendment Defendants assert that any harm the plaintiffs may have suffered as a result of the nullification of the election does not rise to the level of cognizable constitutional injury. This argument is entirely without merit. When a state university official takes retaliatory action against a newspaper for publishing certain content in an effort to force the newspaper to refrain from publishing that or similar content in the future, the official's action creates a chilling effect which gives rise to a First Amendment injury. See Stanley, 719 F.2d at 283. Here, the record establishes that Springer's nullification of the election created just such a chilling effect. As the district court explained, there was a concrete action taken in nullifying a student election because of a publication supportive of a particular slate of candidates which won the election. The threat or chill that plaintiffs assert they felt regarding future issues of the newspapers is not merely subjective, but has already been experienced. In the wake of President Springer's actions in Spring 1997, the College Voice scaled back its coverage of elections and reduced the prominence and extent of its candidate endorsements in an effort to avoid provoking another election nullification. Accordingly, although Springer's actions did not entail impoundment of the May 1997 issue, the denial of funding, or the express prohibition of election coverage, her conduct nevertheless violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights as a result of the chill on student speech that it created. See Zieper v. Metzinger, 474 F.3d 60, 65 (2d Cir.2007) (It is well-established that First Amendment rights may be violated by the chilling effect of governmental action that falls short of a direct prohibition against speech. (internal quotation marks omitted)). b. The May 1997 Issue Did Not Constitute Candidate Speech Nor Did Its Content Violate Applicable Election Rules The defendants contend, however, that the front and back covers of the May 1997 issue of the College Voice, as well as the candidate position statements included in the inside of the issue, did not constitute the newspaper's speech, but rather was the speech of the candidates themselves. The defendants argue that President Springer nullified the election because of this method of candidate speech, which, they assert, violated the governing election rules by essentially creating 5,000 flyers for the Student Union candidates. This claim is unconvincing. First, as the defendants concede, the College Voice was entitled to endorse candidates in the May 1997 student government elections. They further concede that there were no prohibitions against candidates also serving as editors or staffers on the College Voice or against such candidates endorsing themselves. As a result, it cannot be that the newspaper's endorsement of candidates who were also members of its staff converted those endorsements from newspaper speech to candidate speech. Furthermore, the record in this case reflects that the College Voice editors who chose (1) what election-related content to include in the May 1997 issue, (2) which, if any, candidates to endorse, and (3) how to lay out the election-related content in that issue were not running in the election. In other words, the choice to speak in the way challenged by the defendants was not made by any of the candidates. Alternatively, in making this argument, the defendants may be asserting that content such as platform statements, slogans, and exhortations to vote for candidates is necessarily candidate speech, even if technically selected for inclusion in a publication by non-candidates. This position seems premised on an improperly narrow view  in light of the nature of the forum at issue  of what speech is encompassed in media coverage of an election. Moreover, it appears to stem from an impoverished understanding of the different types of media outlets that cover an election or politics, and the nature of content inherent in those outlets: In addition to outlets that offer balanced coverage, there are those that adopt a specific point of view and that  throughout the publication (i.e., not just on the editorial page)  provide content urging readers to embrace that view. To take national media outlets as examples, in addition to USA Today, which describes itself as offering the type of balanced views of an election that President Springer evidently favors, there are partisan media organizations, such as the Nation and the Weekly Standard, which regularly aggressively endorse their chosen candidates, parties, and ideas, and demonstrate their endorsements by, inter alia, reprinting that party's platform or putting a candidate's picture on the cover and urging readers to vote for him or her. These various news organizations all offer different perspectives, or views, on an election, but the latter's coverage is no more candidate speech than the former's. In other words, the fact that a news outlet adopts and zealously promotes the views of the candidates or party it supports and aggressively urges the election of those candidates, or the fact that such speech, unsurprisingly, would tend to benefit those candidates, does not transform the media outlet's speech into candidate speech. In any event, the College Voice 's publication of the election-related content in the May 1997 issue did not violate any germane election rules. The two rules that the defendants assert justified President Springer's actions are Elections Rules 2 and 5. Rule 2 provided: The campus newspaper may not be used as posters on walls, bulletin boards, etc. and may not be used as a means to distribute campaign flyers. Rule 5 stated: The Student Government will be glad to make you 30 copies of your stamped and approved poster or flyer. All candidates must remove their election materials from the designated areas after the election is over. As the district court clearly and correctly explained, neither of these rules precluded the College Voice from publishing the election-related content in its May 1997 issue. We cannot do better than to restate that court's discussion: The only Rules that President Springer relied on and that defendants say are relevant, Election Rules 2 and 5, define the responsibility of the individual student candidates, not the scope of the content of the college newspapers. . . . The Rules do not, explicitly or even implicitly, preclude campus newspapers from endorsing candidates or running platform statements. There is nothing in the rules concerning balanced coverage, the context of editorials, or the placement of headlines or platform statements. Indeed, implicit in Rule 2's requirement that candidates should not use the newspapers as posters is the acknowledgment that the papers may contain favorable opinions and support for a candidate that he or she would want to post on a bulletin board. That Rule 5 provides that the student government will print and pay for 30 posters or flyers imposes no restriction on the number of issues of the school newspaper which may contain an endorsement. There are simply no written guidelines to establish that what was printed in the May 1997 issue of the College Voice was prohibited. (second emphasis added). We agree entirely with the district court's reading of the rules and therefore reject defendants' arguments that Springer's actions were no more than the content-neutral enforcement of the election regulations adopted by the SERC. c. President Springer's Actions Cannot Be Justified as Necessary to Ensure Viewpoint Neutrality in the Administration CSI's Student Activity Fees Fund The defendants further argue that President Springer's actions were justified by her duty to address[ ] the potential First Amendment violation arising from the use of the mandatory Student Activity Fee to favor the viewpoint of the candidate Plaintiffs over that of other candidates. This argument misapprehends how viewpoint neutrality requirements apply to mandatory student activity fees. The defendants are correct that when a state college implements a mandatory student activity fee, its procedure for allocating the funds that fee generates must be viewpoint neutral. This is totally different from, and in no way means, that the college has a duty to ensure that the positions expressed by the recipients of the fees reflect a balance of viewpoints. Far from it; as long as the availability of the funds to student groups is not restricted based on their viewpoint, the college's administration of a mandatory student activity fee complies with the neutrality requirement demanded by the First Amendment. See Board of Regents v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217, 232-33, 120 S.Ct. 1346, 146 L.Ed.2d 193 (2000) (citing Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 841, 115 S.Ct. 2510). Here, the fact that the College Voice expressed a particular viewpoint did not create a First Amendment concern relating to viewpoint neutrality with respect to CSI's administration of the student activity fee funds. No one disputes that the CSI student activity fee funds were distributed based on viewpoint-neutral criteria. Nor does any party dispute that the candidates on the rival slate, SFS, could have founded a newspaper that promoted their views and received student activity fee funds for it. (Indeed, the other campus newspaper at CSI, which also received student activity fee funds, was created by students who objected to the viewpoints espoused by the College Voice. ) The fact that the supporters or candidates of the rival slate did not seek a student-activity-fee-supported media outlet of their own in no way means that the College Voice 's use of the student activity fee funds to express its views gave rise to a viewpoint neutrality issue regarding CSI's administration of the student activity fee fund. No one has here suggested any violations of the requirement that the student activity fee fund be administered in a viewpoint neutral manner. As a result, there was no abuse for President Springer to correct. Rather, far from remedying a (non-existent) viewpoint neutrality problem, President Springer's actions created (a very real) one.