Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri

Background

The student was a graduate journalism student who sold an underground newspaper on a public university campus. The issue at question showed a political cartoon of policemen raping the Statue of Liberty and an article with a headline using an expletive about a group's member. The university had a bylaw banning "indecent conduct or speech." After a campus hearing the school expelled her mid-semester and denied credit for a course. She sued under federal civil-rights law claiming the expulsion violated her right to free speech.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court assumed the paper was not legally obscene and relied on prior decisions protecting offensive political expression. The Court explained that state universities are not exempt from free-speech protections and that a public college cannot punish students merely because the content is offensive to campus standards of decency. The Court found the university punished the student for content rather than for the time, place, or manner of distribution and therefore reversed the lower courts.

Real world impact

The Court ordered the lower court to restore any course credit and to reinstate the student unless valid academic reasons prevent it. Public universities must not expel or bar students simply because others find their political speech or publications offensive. The ruling protects distribution of controversial political cartoons and headlines on state campuses, though the school can still enforce non-discriminatory, reasonable rules about when and where speech occurs.

Dissents or concurrances

Three Justices separately argued the university could discipline students for such conduct. They emphasized the student's prior probations, the memorial-tower setting, claims of "pandering," and the university's interest in maintaining decorum and its educational mission.