Less tar, less nicotine, less freedom

By Corey Friedman

Sometimes, explained Sigmund Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, it’s the First Amendment.

Craven Community College recently banned all tobacco products on campus.

Craven Community College sneaked an unconstitutional prior restraint rule in its tobacco-free campus policy this spring, and administrators appear unwilling to revise the problematic provision.

Included with the college’s ban on cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco on campus property is a declaration that student publications may not publish ads for tobacco products and student groups can’t accept money or gifts from tobacco companies. While this arrangement may sound palatable to some antismoking advocates, it violates students’ First Amendment right to free speech and free association.

Student newspapers are shielded from administrative censorship by an impressive and ever-growing body of constitutional case law. Colleges may not choose which advertisements their campus papers may accept. Federal courts have struck down a Michigan community college’s ban on ads for a nude dance club in its student paper and ruled that state officials in Pennsylvania couldn’t oust ads for alcoholic beverages.

As a former CCC student and former college newspaper editor, I was appalled to learn that a public health initiative had been misused to prohibit protected speech. I wrote to Dr. Catherine Chew, the college president, and Kathy Beal, a vice president, on Aug. 26.

“While Craven Community College may choose as an institution not to endorse tobacco use,” I wrote, “as an extension of the state of North Carolina, it cannot prevent student newspapers from accepting advertisements simply because it wishes to discourage adult citizens from using the products those ads promote.”

In my message to Chew and Beal, I pointed out that no student publications at Craven currently accept advertising. The Communication Club publishes a monthly newsletter and meets its expenses without ad revenue. While no present publications are affected by the tobacco ad ban, its existence remains a threat to free speech. A group of students could choose next week, next semester or next year to start a newspaper or magazine, and they would be subject to this needless, meddlesome and unlawful restriction.

Unfortunately, Craven has a reputation of recalcitrance when it comes to acknowledging student press rights. In October 2004, then-President Scott Ralls seized a shipment containing every copy of that month’s issue and refused to release the papers until student editors agreed to blot out the address of an arrested student with correction fluid. Months later, a controversial sex column led Ralls to propose a censorship panel that would review and approve content before the paper could be printed.

First Amendment watchdogs and student press groups intervened, and the college quickly backpedaled, passing an agreement to respect the Campus Communicator‘s editorial independence in June 2005. Just four short years later, amnesiac administrators have forgotten the valuable lessons learned when they fought the law and, as the song goes, the law won.

Beal defended the unconstitutional ad ban in a Sept. 16 response to my letter, arguing that the 1998 Big Tobacco settlement — which prevents tobacco companies from targeting minors in their ads — somehow allows the college to prohibit tobacco advertising in a newspaper written by and for adult college students.

“The College’s current policy is carefully founded upon a historical basis for regulating tobacco products, the Master Settlement Agreement of which North Carolina is a settling state, the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund, and the regulatory grid to which tobacco products and smoking are currently subject,” Beal wrote.

While tobacco companies are subject to the terms of the 1998 settlement — which include restrictions on advertising — newspapers, magazines and other media are not. Of course, pre-emptive bans on lawful ads constitute prior restraint of the press and are in clear conflict with the First Amendment.

I explained this to Vice President Beal and suggested she seek guidance from the college’s legal counsel or request an advisory opinion from the state attorney general. I hope the policy will be revised and the unlawful portions stricken, but I fear Craven will again ignore its legal and moral obligation to preserve student rights.

Repressive policies such as Craven’s tobacco ad ban are based in fear and mistrust. Many student newspapers allowed to operate freely choose to reject cigarette and smokeless tobacco advertisements. Why don’t you let future student editors make that decision, President Chew?

After all, it is legally their choice to make — not yours.