A manager in Graham Dining Center told Jerk magazine it could not distribute its February issue or any future edition in the dining center because he did not like the content in the magazine, said Katie Allyn, Jerk’s editor at large.

‘I walked into the dining hall with a stack of magazines in my hand, and a worker said, ‘No, you have to get them approved,” Allyn said. ‘So I asked the manager if it’s OK, and he said he took a look at them and decided he didn’t want them there. It was definitely clear that he didn’t like the content of the magazine.’

The incident, which occurred Jan. 16 around 6 p.m., has sparked discussion on campus about Jerk’s First Amendment right to free speech and prompted the university administration to reinforce a campus policy banning most student publications from dining centers.

In response to the discussion over Jerk’s First Amendment rights, two students from Jerk magazine and the publication’s faculty adviser met Friday with Syracuse University administrators David George and Kevin Morrow.

‘The message that I heard from David George and Kevin Morrow is that it was not the individual’s place to make a comment about the content,’ said Melissa Chessher, the faculty adviser to Jerk magazine. ‘That was not their job, place or purpose.’

As a result of the meeting, the administration will be reinforcing an old policy that bans student publication distribution in campus dining centers, SU spokesman Morrow said in an e-mail interview.

George and Morrow told Jerk staff at the Friday meeting that the important issue was not Jerk’s content, but that Jerk magazine was going against an SU policy that bans student publications from distributing in any dining center, Chessher said.

There are two major reasons why students cannot distribute publications in the dining centers. There is not enough space, and the excess publications create waste, Morrow said. The policy had been in place before Graham Dining staff turned Jerk away in January, Morrow said.

Jerk magazine was created in 2003 as a tri-semester publication to discuss controversial ideas and alternative material in order to promote student dialogue.

But Morrow said Jerk’s content was not the issue.

‘Food Services does not have display space for publications in the dining centers,’ he said. ‘Further, printed publications are not in keeping with Food Services’ sustainability efforts.’

But the policy, which keeps Jerk magazine and many other student publications out of the dining centers, has never been written and printed in the Student Handbook or in any other SU policy document, Morrow said.

‘Not all procedures are written down in the Student Handbook or listed on the Web,’ Morrow said. ‘Some are simply practices or directives that have been in place and followed.’

Many student publications, including Jerk, said they had never heard of the policy and have been distributing their work in dining centers for years.

One exception to the policy is a longstanding agreement with the university that allows The Daily Orange to distribute in dining centers and food courts, Morrow said.

Jerk has been putting their publications in the dining centers for seven years. Since Allyn, editor at large at Jerk, began working at Jerk three years ago, she never encountered dining staff members who were aware of the policy, she said.

Chessher, who is the faculty adviser for several other student publications such as Zipped, The Out Crowd and 360 Degrees, said now all of her organizations will have to jump through hurdles to be able to distribute in appropriate places, she said.

‘What we’re being told is very confusing and contradictory, and it doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of a university that’s supposed to be promoting exploration of diverse ideas,’ she said.

Student publications must now contact the Office of Residence Life if they want to be distributed within dormitories, Morrow said. There is no circumstance under which they may be distributed in dining centers, he said.

David Rubin and Joel Kaplan, professors in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, heard about the incident and discussed it with their communications law students.

As a private university, SU does not have to abide by state of federal laws that protect freedom of speech, said Rubin, a professor of communications law and former Newhouse dean.

‘There are many people, myself included, at this university that think it’s unfortunate to treat the free speech and press rights of our students more harshly than would be the case at a public place, certainly at an institution like SU,’ Rubin said.

The university has not violated students’ rights to free speech if the university has a legitimate policy that they can prove showing that publications cause clutter in the dining centers, Rubin said.

Joel Kaplan, a communications law professor in Newhouse, pointed to several other incidents in the past when the administration infringed on students’ right to free speech. The administration shut down a campus television program, The Hill, in 2005 for having offensive content, Kaplan said.

‘I’m worried about the atmosphere on campus if you have a staff member who removed this publication without impunity,’ Kaplan said. ‘You can speak out against what was said without having to shut it down.’

Published on February 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm