The Boe Forum and the Free Press

One of the biggest Augustana advantages is the Boe Forum. Each year, the Center for Western Studies invites somebody--Robbie Bach, Antonin Scalia, and Neil Tyson during my first three years at Augie--to come give a speech about important topics. It's super cool and super interesting and an awesome opportunity.

“Since its inception in 1995, the Boe Forum on Public Affairs has sought to provide access to individuals who can address events, issues or problems of worldwide or national concern and of broad public interest,” said Dr. Harry Thompson, executive director of the Center for Western Studies.

My freshman year I went with my sister. Robbie Bach, a ex-Microsoft executive, spoke about his time working on xbox and cyber security, and it was super interesting. My sophomore year Antonin Scalia was invited to speak. I don't know if I would have gone, but he passed away before I had to decide.

Last year I attended both the speech and press conference with Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think science is really cool, and I thought there were a lot of interesting points he made. But he was quite an ass to the high school and college journalists at the press conference (anybody who said um was shunned and he made fun of somebody who said he was majoring in philosophy).

This year, tickets sold out before I got one. And then I agreed to cover somebody's shift at the Writing Center, so I didn't go. I did, however, attend the press conference with this year's speaker, Dr. Condoleezza Rice. She was much less of an ass than Neil Tyson. She had some things to say that I agreed with, some that I disagreed with, and some downright pleasing anecdotes from her time as the 66th Secretary of State.

I found it a bit difficult to focus on anything she said, however, on account of the wondering about my first amendment rights to free speech. I strongly believe that the free press is the foundation of the democracy that Condoleezza Rice has spent much of her career working in and for. Both Augustana President Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Dr. Rice spent time at the beginning of the press conference talking about the importance of a free press.

I found that ironic considering Dr. Rice's team announced minutes before the press conference with high school and college journalists that we could not record any video, we could not tweet, and we were only allowed to take photos for the first few minutes. I also found it ironic when I heard that during her speech at the forum she talked about how we use technology is important.

Banning twitter--a form of technology that is arguably necessary to modern journalism--is, in my opinion, a direct violation of students' First Amendment rights. After taking an Ethics and Law of the Press course last semester, I can't help but think about what would have happened had I live tweeted the press conference and Dr. Rice/her team found out about it.

There are a few court cases that I've studied that deal with the First Amendment rights of students that could possibly be used as precedent:

The first of which is the 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines School District. In the case, there were students who wore black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War. The action was passive and not a disruption, but rather political speech that was advocating for a change in the las, so the Supreme Court ruled that students have a right to free speech so long as their speech does not materially and substantially interfere with school discipline and the rights of other students.

I would assume if Tinker was applied my tweets could have been considered political and would not have been able to materially or substantially interfere with school discipline.

Another case, Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988) dealt with high school students whose newspaper was censored. In this case, the Supreme Court said that censorship was permissible under the First Amendment if there was legitimate pedagogical concerns--which includes a plethora of things such as poor writing, inadequate research, bias/prejudice, and grammar errors.

I would also assume if they used Hazelwood, as long as the tweets were true, grammatically correct, and unbiased, they would not be a legitimate pedagogical concern.

The final case that might be used as precedent would be Hosty v. Carter, a 2005 Supreme Court case that actually had to do with the college press. This case has to do whether or not the place is a public forum. One part of this case was that if the press conference was part of my educational experience, it would not be considered a public forum because the student would be graded on attendance and tweets. I, however, was not there for a class. I was there on my own and would not be advised or graded on my tweets.

So, for me, I would think the SCOTUS would rule that the press conference was a public forum, and I would once again assume that the court would rule in favor of saying censorship (which is what telling students they can't tweet is) would be considered unconstitutional.

The Boe Forum wants to bring "issues or problems of worldwide or national concern and of broad public interest" to attention; for me, the First Amendment is an issue of concern and of broad public interest. I can't help but feeling a little cheated out of my final press conference at Augustana. I should have been able to tweet. My First Amendment rights should not have been compromised.

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