Kansas student journalist sues university, for ‘flagrantly violating’ his rights
After a months-long dispute, a student journalist is suing Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, saying his First Amendment rights were violated when the school held back funding for the student newspaper.
On Tuesday Jared Nally, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, known as FIRE, filed a federal lawsuit in Kansas claiming the university is “withholding more than $10,000 from the newspaper’s anticipated funds, without any notice or explanation.”
The suit was filed even though Haskell President Ronald Graham admitted in January that he was wrong in stopping Nally, editor of the Indian Leader, from interviewing and writing about school officials. Nally says he is still being retaliated against by the university.
The lawsuit claims the Indian Leader, the oldest Native American student newspaper in the country, submitted a required request for renewal in September but the university “has failed to even recognize the group” and has imposed financial and administrative hurdles to impede the paper’s operation.
Newspaper funding comes from fees paid by every student to support activities — $35 during fall and spring semesters and $25 during the summer. Haskell has an enrollment of about 1,000 students representing 140 federally recognized tribes from across the United States.
“Joining our student newspaper gave me a voice, and unfortunately it’s going to take a lawsuit for the university to listen to it,” Nally said in a statement.
The university did not respond to The Star’s request for a comment.
The lawsuit names Graham, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education and its director, Tony Dearman. Haskell is one of only two institutions of higher education operated and funded by the agency. Graham became university president in May.
The suit says that Nally and the paper seek to “hold Haskell’s leadership accountable for flagrantly violating clearly established First Amendment rights.” It argues that the university “cannot punish the protected expression of student journalists like Nally — or any student — simply because officials find their expression, reporting, or commentary to lack ‘appropriate respect.’”
In October, Graham threatened Nally with disciplinary action and ordered him to stop normal reporting duties after 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.” Graham said Nally’s reporting did not show school officials “appropriate respect.”
Nally had been working on several stories about the census, student fees and the death of a food service worker at Haskell.
Nally complained to the Bureau of Indian Education that the president’s directive forbade him from doing normal journalistic work. And he started 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 challenged the president’s directive in October, and three months later Graham rescinded it, saying in a letter to the foundation, “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.”
FIRE called the move a victory but said it never should have taken the university so long to back down. And in a second letter, FIRE told the university it needed to change language in its student code of ethics, which “only permits speech that is consistent with Haskell’s ‘Circle’ values,” which are communication, integrity, respect, collaboration, leadership and excellence.
“Those are laudable goals, but they can not supersede the First Amendment,” said Darpana Sheth, vice president of litigation at FIRE.
She said the university did review its student code but did not change the language FIRE objected to. “We gave them two bites at the apple to fix this,” Sheth said. “Now they will answer in court.”
“Haskell is making it very clear that they put institutional reputation above student rights,” said Katlyn Patton, another lawyer with FIRE. “We’re not only defending Jared’s constitutional rights, but the rights of all Haskell students, and student reporters across the country. In doing so, we’re showing public institutions that the First Amendment is non-negotiable.”
