I’m a big fan of all of our enumerated rights, even if I focus on our right to keep and bear arms here at this website. So I was intrigued when I saw a column by Indiana physician Raja Ramaswamy that argued we should be protecting our First Amendment rights like we do our Second; after all, we regularly document treatment of the Second Amendment as a second-class right, and I’d argue that we should be protecting our Second Amendment rights like we do our First.
Ramaswamy’s first complaint is that Indiana University ended the print edition of its student newspaper, supposedly because of a deficit in its budget. The doctor, however, says the the Indiana Daily Student’s print edition was cancelled and its advisor removed after “he refused an administrative order to limit content in a Homecoming issue.”
The university cited a structural deficit and a move toward digital publishing. I along with many others see something else: an attempt to control editorial content. For a public university meant to foster open inquiry it sent a chilling message.
Really? I don’t know if Ramaswamy is aware, but printed journalism is quickly becoming as anachronistic as telegrams. The fact that the student paper continues to exist online suggests that speech isn’t being chilled. Even if the university had shuttered the student paper altogether though, so long as it didn’t take action against any students engaged in independent journalism I’d say their First Amendment rights remain untouched.
By Cam Edwards
