The suit is the first legal action seeking redress for the removal of the independent student newspaper's bins last June, which was done because school officials said they were trying to "clean up campus." Employees for The Liberty said bins for the school's official student paper, The Daily Barometer were left untouched.

School officials have said The Daily Barometer, as the official newspaper of the school, is the only paper allowed to have its bins all over campus. Other papers like The Liberty are allowed to put their bins only in certain locations.

"The Liberty and the students really just want to be treated equally," said David Hacker, the American Defense Fund attorney working on the case. "They want to put their bins back on campus and be treated equally with The Daily Barometer."

The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting the university from removing The Liberty's distribution bins from campus.

Once the complaint is served, the school will have 20 days to respond, after which the case could go to trial.

Todd Simmons, the director of news and communications services for Oregon State, said the treatment of The Liberty is not as biased as that paper's staff makes it seem. He said at the same time The Liberty had its bins removed, a number of other papers did as well.

"The Liberty is still perfectly free to distribute on campus," Simmons said. "Like all other others that seek to be distributed here, they can be distributed through other means, other than the bins."
Simmons refused to comment about how the university would respond to the lawsuit.

Will Rogers, executive editor for The Liberty, said the bins removed from campus were donated to the paper.

Rogers said he is concerned about the special treatment given to The Daily Barometer despite the fact both papers are produced on campus, exclusively by students.

"The fact of the matter is the school is basically telling The Liberty its speech isn't as worthy as other publications on campus," Hacker said. "The university can't be operating under some sort of completely unbridled and vague policy that allows it to dictate when and where students can speak on campus. That's extremely chilling to student speech, and it violates the First Amendment."