The UT System Board of Regents intends to continue mandating prior review for Texas student media, despite objections by the Texas Student Publications Board of Operating Trustees.
The TSP board, which manages all student media and assets, including The Daily Texan, convened Friday to review a new draft of TSP's operating agreement with the University. Some TSP board members said they had anticipated the removal of prior review and were surprised to find it upheld in the document.
Following a year of deliberation, the UT System drafted an agreement designed to hand down prior review authority to the TSP board, but perpetuating the regental mandate that all Texan content be reviewed by a University-approved adviser before publication. The agreement also expands the mandate to all other Texas student media.
According to the Student Press Law Center, The Daily Texan is one of the last college papers in the country left with prior review.
Although it has not been actively used to censor content since the current agreement was established in 1971, Texan editors and TSP board members fear the mechanism could allow material to be censored in the future.
This discussion circumvents the revamping of the 35-year-old Declaration of Trust, which defines the operating structure of student media and gives the UT System Board of Regents legal liability for Texas Student Publications. It also sets up the regents as trustees of TSP assets.
"The draft document sounds like a very meaningless change," said Mark Goodman, a First Amendment lawyer and executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "This is something I've said from the start: Prior review is unconstitutional, it's educationally inappropriate and morally offensive. But ultimately it is illegal, and it makes it no more permissible for it to be conducted by the [TSP board], than it does by the [Board of Regents]."
Goodman said a highly regarded institution, such as the University of Texas, should understand the unconstitutionality of prior review, but it seems that someone within the University hierarchy does not.
"As I understood it, the original objective of this entire approach was to get rid of prior review," said at-large student TSP board member Brian Ferguson. "Not only does [the draft] absolutely mandate prior review in four or five spots, but then it gets this board to sign off again on implementing said prior review."
Rusty Todd, chairman of the executive committee of the TSP board who did not attend Friday's meeting, said he thinks the Texan ought to keep the same structure that's been in place for more than 100 years, but that such a policy should not be mandated by the regents. Todd said the TSP board should have "an internal policy that we definitely have a professional adviser around to make sure that we have a reference point."
UT System Regent and former Texan news editor Cyndi Krier said during previous interviews that the regents are not willing to relinquish control of an organization for which they are legally liable. Though they intend to transfer legal responsibility to the TSP board, the regents want to make sure the legal protection created by prior review remains, she said.
Krier, who was not at the TSP board meeting, said she had a different understanding of what the TSP board wanted.
"I thought that the general agreement was that they didn't want the Board of Regents doing prior review," Krier said. "The general consensus was to move it back to the campus, back to the TSP level, and that they were going to develop the actual process."
Krier said the Board of Regents is open to a description that would make the TSP board more comfortable.
Negotiations regarding the structure of TSP as it relates to the University, the UT System and the College of Communication will likely continue through February, when the interested parties hope to have an agreement, according to a regental timeline.
The regents will discuss this issue during their executive session at the Nov. 15 meeting.
Be the first to comment on this article!