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10th Circuit denies rehearing in Kansas State adviser case
Panel had ruled that graduated students' claim was moot
August 21, 2007
KANSAS
— Two former Kansas State University students who sued their school
over their newspaper adviser's removal will not get a rehearing from the
appellate court that dismissed their case.
Kansas State removed Ron
Johnson, adviser to the Collegian student newspaper, in 2004. Students
and school officials demanded Johnson's removal after the Collegian
failed to cover a minority-student event on campus. Johnson was removed based on
a content analysis of the paper, conducted by a university administrator, which
concluded that the Collegian's quality was sub-par.
A three-judge
panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that because
plaintiffs Katie Lane and Sarah Rice, both former Collegian editors, had
graduated, their claim that Johnson's removal violated the students' First
Amendment rights was moot. The appellate court on Monday denied Lane and Rice's
petition for a rehearing before the full court.
Several free-expression
advocacy groups — including the Student Press Law Center, the American
Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Collegiate Press and College Media
Advisers — had joined in a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to
reconsider. The brief argued that the standard used by the panel would make it
almost impossible for students to win free-expression cases against their
schools because most students would graduate before their cases were
completed.
Patrick Doran, the attorney representing Lane and Rice, said
Tuesday he would wait until he received a copy of the court's order before the
students and he decide whether to pursue the case any further.
"I think
the options are limited," Doran said. The only alternative would be to ask the
U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.
By Michael Beder, SPLC staff writer
© 2007 Student Press Law Center
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For More Information: Lane v. Simon, No. 05-3266, petition for rehearing en banc denied (10th Cir., Aug. 20, 2007)
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