SDSU Editor Sues Over Right of Endorsement

The editor in chief of the San Diego State University campus newspaper filed suit Thursday to overturn a California State University policy prohibiting the system’s 20 newspaper editorial boards from endorsing political candidates and propositions.

Represented by the San Diego chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, R. Andrew Rathbone also asked U.S. District Judge Edward Schwartz to prohibit SDSU President Thomas Day from suspending Rathbone as editor in chief of the Daily Aztec for one day. Rathbone is scheduled to serve the suspension Feb. 2.

Rathbone’s attorney, John Allcock, said that the CSU policy is a clear violation of Rathbone’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression.

“Just because the state allows a newspaper to exist doesn’t mean the state can control what the newspaper says,” Allcock said at a news conference in the ACLU office at 444 West C St. “In that respect, the Aztec should be treated the same as the New York Times.”

“History has shown that students have to speak out politically or no one else is going to speak up for their rights,” Rathbone said.

Day said Thursday that the situation now “works out belatedly the way it should have gone in the first place”--with a court test of the issue. “They put the cart before the horse,” Day said. “My letter to Mr. Rathbone made that point. I would rather he have put the horse before the cart.”

Day emphasized that he sanctioned Rathbone for flouting the CSU rules--which carry the weight of state law--without first exhausting other remedies, such as taking the matter to court. He sa1768169576constitutional.

Day moved to suspend Rathbone on Nov. 4, when the Daily Aztec published unsigned endorsements of candidates on the general election ballot that day. A day earlier, the newspaper carried an editorial in the same space exhorting other campus newspapers to defy the endorsement ban. Rathbone appealed the suspension, and it was postponed until Feb. 2.

Day continued to maintain Thursday that it is inappropriate for the Daily Aztec to endorse candidates for offices outside the campus because campus newspapers are “primarily a medium of intra-campus communication among and between students.”

Mayer Chapman, the CSU’s general counsel, said last month that endorsements by student newspapers might leave unclear whether the endorsement is the opinion of the publication’s staff or of the university. It would also entangle an organization that receives money from the state in state elections, he said.

Though at least 11 CSU campus newspapers defied the ban, Day’s action against Rathbone was the only known punishment of a student editor during the election period last month, said Jeff Stetson, a CSU spokesman. Day apparently had ignored Daily Aztec endorsements made during two previous elections.

Rathbone’s legal action comes despite a similar lawsuit filed by Adam Truitt, student editor of the Humboldt State University Lumberjack, who was suspended for the same reason two years ago. An out-of-court settlement was reached in that case but rejected by the CSU trustees in a closed session last month, said Arnie Braafladt, Truitt’s attorney.

Braafladt said the settlement was similar to the wording of a bill passed this year by the Legislature, which would have allowed campus newspapers to publish endorsements as long as they carried disclaimers indicating that they were the opinions of the newspaper staff. Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed the legislation Sept. 30.

A victory by the Daily Aztec would probably help the Lumberjack, but might not settle that case definitively, Braafladt said. The Daily Aztec is arguing in federal court, while the Lumberjack is opposing state laws, and CSU might delay a final judgment by appealing it, he said.

Unlike the Lumberjack, the Daily Aztec receives no money from SDSU, supporting itself on advertising revenue, Rathbone said Thursday. The university’s only contribution to the newspaper is free office space, he said.