The University of Kansas avoided a messy and prolonged First Amendment lawsuit, apparently because its student leaders thought better of their actions.
The University Daily Kansan settled its lawsuit against the school after the Student Senate restored the funding it had cut following a professor’s editorial that criticized the Senate for election shenanigans, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Terms weren’t make public.
The Senate had halved the paper’s $90,000 allotment, officially because the paper cut its print schedule in half, but senators publicly suggested the editorial and other content gripes were the real reason.
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KU made itself a litigation target when Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little approved the new, allegedly retaliatory 2015-2016 $45,000 funding for the paper, which led the Daily to cut 13 paid positions.
As the Student Press Law Center said in a press release after the lawsuit was filed in February:
During the budget cycle that followed, members of the Student Senate repeatedly interjected their displeasure with the editorial, and with the newspaper’s coverage of student government in general, into the discussion of the Kansan’s request for renewed grant support. …
A member of the Senate’s finance committee openly acknowledged that the reduction was a response to perceived “problematic” coverage, including the May 2014 editorial. The president of the Student Senate characterized the funding cut as an opportunity for the newspaper’s editors to “fix their content” to meet the approval of the budget committee in future funding cycles.
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In late April the Daily reported, almost as an afterthought, that the Senate voted at its last meeting to bump up the funding:
Senate also passed a funding bill from the Student Executive Committee raising the University Daily Kansan’s fee from $1 to $2.50 per student for the next school year. For the following two years, the Kansan will receive $2 per student of the student fee. Senators approved the bill by a vote of 42-2-4.
Jon Schlitt, the paper’s temporary editorial adviser, told the Student Press Law Center the Daily plans to work with its alumni to set up an endowment in lieu of asking for student-fee money after fiscal year 2019.
Read the Capital-Journal and SPLC reports.
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h/t Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
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