Opinion ID: 1426237
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Publications Funded by Student Activity Fees at CSI

Text: CSI allocates student activity fees to fund a number of student publications, including the one at issue in this litigation, the College Voice. The College Voice is a student newspaper and political journal that is primarily paid for from student activity fees. [1] The College Voice publishes articles and editorials on a wide range of topics, including pieces on CSI, CUNY, local, national, and international affairs, reviews, and poetry. The editors of the College Voice choose the material that the newspaper publishes without any supervision or prior review by anyone other than the editors and staff of the newspaper. (The newspaper has a faculty advisor who does not review or approve articles prior to publication.) Participation in the College Voice is entirely extracurricular, and the editors and staff do not receive any academic credit for working on the newspaper. In addition to the College Voice, CSI also funds a college radio station and other student media outlets using the student activity fees. The other outlets include the Banner, which the student government designated the official campus newspaper, a literary magazine named The Third Rail, and various other publications. CUNY and CSI have not placed any restrictions on the subjects that may be covered in the College Voice or the Banner. [2] These newspapers are not prohibited from publishing articles or editorials expressing opinions or endorsing candidates in student elections. There is no rule or regulation prohibiting or restricting the editors or staff members of the College Voice, or other publications, from running for student government positions or from endorsing themselves. According to the plaintiffs' complaint, in the early 1990s the College Voice was designated the official college newspaper of CSI. Several years before the Spring 1997 election, the editors of the College Voice began publishing articles that reflected a generally left-wing perspective on campus, local, national, and international political issues. Many of the articles and editorials were critical of CUNY and CSI administration officials. These positions prompted some students, who disagreed with the College Voice 's editorial policy, to form a second student newspaper at CSI called the Banner. The CSI Student Government subsequently revoked College Voice 's designation as the official CSI student newspaper and gave that status to the Banner. In Spring 1997, the Banner was the official CSI student newspaper.