A Kansas university admits it violated student’s First Amendment rights
The president of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence admitted he was wrong in stopping a student journalist from interviewing and writing about school officials.
President Ronald Graham has rescinded an order he made three months ago, according to a letter to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. In October, the group, known as FIRE, challenged Graham’s directive toward student Jared Nally, editor of the campus paper, The Indian Leader.
“I acknowledge that we took an incorrect approach,” Graham wrote. “I commit that Haskell will not interfere in the affairs of the Indian Leader or impede the free expression rights of individual students at Haskell.”
Nally had been working on several stories about the census, student fees and the death of a food service worker at Haskell.
School officials complained he was recording them without their permission, which is lawful in Kansas, and then writing about what they told him.
Graham’s directive to Nally said that being a student journalist for the Leader “does not absolve you from your responsibilities as a Haskell student — and as a representative of our community.” He threatened Nally with “disciplinary action.”
Nally complained to the Bureau of Indian Education that the president’s directive forbade him from doing normal journalistic work. He has been working with FIRE, in collaboration with the Student Press Law Center and the Native American Journalists Association, to restore his rights as as student journalist.
FIRE received Graham’s letter on Wednesday.
“While we welcome the rescission of the directive, HINU’s failure to rescind the directive for months was an outrageous and clear violation of Jared’s First Amendment rights,” Daniel Burnett, a spokesman for FIRE, said in a statement.
“President Graham should have focused more on answering questions from a student reporter than unilaterally forbidding him from asking those questions. We’re excited that Jared and The Indian Leader no longer have to struggle with an unconstitutional directive, but there is no reason this victory should have taken this long.”
Graham became president of Haskell in May. Haskell has an enrollment of about 1,000 students representing 140 federally recognized tribes from across the United States.
