Today's Word—Campus Freedom and Judicial Activism

(Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)

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Teaching Freedom of Ideas

ASSOCIATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA spoke yesterday at Utah State University on “Freedom and the Rule of Law,” calling for less judicial activism. In an ironic twist, press coverage to the Supreme Court justice’s address at the public, land-grant university campus was limited—student journalists with cameras were evicted. See journalism professor Penny Byrne’s criticism, “Shame on USU for agreeing to Scalia’s demand to exclude cameras,” on the USU HardNewsCafé. Today, BTW, is the 215th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol Building (1793).


(Scott Sommerdorf/Salt Lake Tribune)

Freedom of Thought, American Universities, and Judicial Restraint:

1. “Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia got the rockstar treatment Monday at Utah State University, where he argued that laws on ‘homosexual sodomy’ and abortion should be set by ‘the people,’ not judges.”
—Kim Burgess, reporter, The Logan Herald Journal, 9/16/08

2. “LOGAN—In recent years, American judges have taken to ‘abstract moralizing’ at the expense of their real job, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Monday.”
—Brian Maffly, reporter, The Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10472873)

3. “I attack ideas.”
—Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 2008

4. “The real heart of a university is freedom to express and to criticize.”
—George W. Starcher, University of North Dakota president, 1968

Speak up! Feedback and suggestions—printable and otherwise—always welcome. After all, as Oliver Wendell Holmes (who was a pretty good writer) said, “There are no false opinions.”

Pease’s Soapbox:

I was there as masses of students, faculty, staff and local civilians filled not just the ballroom at Utah State yesterday, but overflowed into two additional venues to view Megatrons. Was it the SuperBowl? Bon Jovi? Mick and the Ancient Brits? Nope. Here were flocks of 20-somethings gathering to hear pearls from U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.

Frankly, few of my students had ever heard of him, which is a bit of a concern. But otherwise, I was thrilled.

My beginning news writing students were there to cover their first live speech. My media literacy students were there for extra credit and because—well, how often do you get the chance in rural Utah to hear directly from one of the nine top judicial authorities in the world? We’ve been talking about how news and information in the modern world is framed for generally sheeplike audiences. Mostly, of course, we all get our “knowledge” about the world from the mass media—un-“vetted” (a term many have just learned) pundits (also a new term for them) who frame events and explain to us how to think about them. So what a great opportunity for real-world learning and first-hand framing of news events.

From the perspective of a First Amendment abolutist, though, a lifelong free-marketplace-of-ideas vendor, a university professor who believes our campuses need more freedom, not less, there were disturbing vibes. The Utah State PR office informed the press two weeks ago that Scalia would be here for a public conference on “Freedom and the Rule of Law,” with the caveat note to editors that press freedom would be restricted. “Still camera, pencil and pad coverage only.” For broadcasters, “no film or video allowed.” These strictures came from the U.S. Supreme Court PR office. A mugshot of Justice Scalia was provided.

Well, this seemed a little weird. Why would a justice of the highest court in the land of the free, whose primary role it is to interpret the U.S. Constitution, be so shy? Arguably, unconstitutionally so? Well, maybe not in the letter of the law, but certainly in its spirit.

And this is a U.S. university, after all—more than 20,000 students at a land-grant institution, whose charge is to prepare the sons and daughters of the land to be citizen-scholars.

But the place was packed. Good enough. As Justice Scalia was introduced by his presenters as the greatest mind of his age, the High Court’s greatest writer ever (!), teachable young minds swarmed into the overflow spaces. Well, I thought, no matter what happens, this is a good thing. After all, until last week, none of my journalism students could identify both U.S. senators from Utah.

But then police officers ejected a student because he was carrying a video camera for the student TV station. A faculty member wondered if he could get busted for videotaping the videoscreen in the overflow auditorium. Few in the audience had any idea that “free press” on the Utah State University campus is a conditional concept when a U.S. Supreme Court justice appears to apply his other First Amendment rights of speech and assembly.

Would it have mattered? Of course not—except to the student broadcast journalists involved, whose education on freedom in the real world has suddenly been starkly illustrated. Perhaps Justice Scalia was concerned about being caught in an embarrassing gesture, but in a public space at a public event on a public university campus where we try to teach young people how to think for themselves, this was a troubling contradiction.

About the press coverage: I don’t know what (if anything) Utah’s electronic media were able to air, considering that no video or recording devices were permitted, but the print media offered interestingly different leads on their stories. This is a good thing for me, since I’ll be talking in class today and tomorrow about how the mass media frame news events, and how media consumers should be wary.

The local newspaper—the Herald Journal—led its page one coverage with references to “homosexual sodomy” and abortion. The Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City also mentioned these topics in its lead. This is weird, because that’s not the focus I heard from Justice Scalia. His point, I thought (but what do I know?) was to decry judicial and beaucratic activism in favor of his concept of constitutional “originalism.” That was the lead on The Salt Lake Tribune’s story, too—about the “political snakepit” that the federal bench has become in reaction to overweening political appointments. (Note: See the current Supreme Court.) I suppose that “homosexual sodomy” and the rest may be one example of that kind of activism, although I might have focused on, say, judicial perspectives on individual rights and waterboarding in wartime.

But I’m no constitutional scholar and that’s just my take. Which will be my point when I meet with my news writing and media literacy students: What did you hear? What knowledge base do you bring to it? How do you think the event should be framed for people who weren’t there? How acurately do you think the press framed and presented the story?

And, by the way, what’s your take on throwing out student TV journalists?

—Ted Pease