The College Fix

No longer comparable to North Korea

Nassau Community College made a smart decision: change a facially stupid policy rather than deal with constant negative attention from free-speech and media advocacy groups.

At a trustees meeting last week, the New York public college overhauled a policy that had previously required faculty and staff to get permission to contact the media and required reporters to be “accompanied” by public relations staff.

The new policy, amended less than two years after the trustees approved it, changes the mandates to voluntary recommendations, and most of it deals with media access to athletic events.

John K. Wilson, co-editor of the Academe blog run by the American Association of University Professors, celebrated the policy change in a Tuesday post.

He characterized the previous policy as a “terrible infringement on freedom of the press and the academic freedom of faculty and staff to speak to the media.” The staff who accompanied reporters anywhere they went on campus were “minders,” Wilson said, using a loaded term often applied to repressive regimes.

Wilson credited pressure from AAUP’s Nassau chapter, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, himself and Frank LoMonte, director of the University of Florida’s Brechner Center, for the policy change.

FIRE shamed the college in September for the previous policy, which said faculty and staff “must first contact the Office of Governmental Affairs and Media Relations” before contacting media; any employee “is to notify” that office “as soon as practical” when contacted by the media; and reporters “must be accompanied” by an office staffer.

“The policy’s plainly-stated requirements threaten the First Amendment and evince a deep institutional suspicion of the media — and NCC’s own faculty,” FIRE said:

In other words, NCC administrators have reserved unto themselves the right to exercise an effective veto power on when, why, and how faculty may initiate contact with the media.

It gets worse. Administrators are empowered to dictate the terms of not only faculty-initiated discussions with journalists, but to “manage” incoming media inquiries, as well. Per the policy, “[i]t is the responsibility of the Office of Governmental Affairs and Media Relations to initiate and/or respond to news media requests and to manage those interactions.”

The policy also had an “enforcement” section that threatened “disciplinary action” against faculty and blacklisting of reporters from campus for violating it, FIRE said. The administration ignored its spring inquiries and only started reviewing the policy after local media coverage in June.

FIRE said it finally received a response after warning the college in September that its proposed amendments didn’t go far enough.

AAUP’s Wilson also called out the taxpayer-funded institution in September, saying the “minders” provision recalls North Korean treatment of visiting journalists:

This is a violation of the First Amendment because it places a special restriction in public spaces on the press that applies to no one else. It is also aimed at suppressing the free speech of staff and students by having an administrative spy overhear anything they might say to the media, much like similar “minders” are used in North Korea to control press access. This provision could also be used to ban the media from campus if a staffer is unavailable. It also endangers academic freedom because any professor who invites a journalist to speak in a class will be required to have the administration monitor that class.

A previous provision, since excised from the policy, also forced faculty and staff to route “all press releases and statements” to the media through the media office. Wilson said this was not only an unconstitutional prior restraint, but the policy didn’t define “College event”:

[I]t could include even protests organized by staff against the administration, including an event criticizing the News Media Policy.

Also gone: a provision Wilson flagged that imposed a gag order on publicly discussing litigation without “prior approval” of the general counsel’s office.

Here’s how Wilson described it:

Under this rule, if an employee is the victim of discrimination or sexual abuse, that employee can be fired for discussing this wrongdoing publicly with anybody. In fact, if anyone sued Nassau Community College over this unconstitutional media policy, any professor could be fired for saying anything to the media about how the media policy should be changed, presenting research about the media policy, or even organizing an event to discuss freedom of the press and the media policy, unless the administration gives advance permission for such freedom of speech.

Read the new policy, old policy and Wilson’s Tuesday post.

MORE: U. North Alabama bans profs from talking to media without permission

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