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Show Editorial A STANDING While we are not lawyers, we believe the following points outline our position: 1. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, press and religion. a) If neither the federal, state or local governments are allowed to make laws abridging these rights, might we suggest that it is improper for a quasi governing body (such as the publications council of the University of Utah) to make such laws (rules). b) We further believe that because it uses tuition and public pub-lic tax money, the University cannot regulate advertising (or editorial content of its student newspaper) by taking tak-ing refuge on the grounds that it is a private organization organiza-tion or corporation. c) Nor since a large portion of the students are over 21 and the vast majority over 18, can it do so on the grounds that it is acting in place of the parents of the students. d) We further believe that because the University subsidises sub-sidises the printing of the Chronicle with money that is derived from the student activity fees, that the University Univer-sity administration cannot claim that they have the right to regulate either editorial freedom or advertising. e) We believe that no class of advertising can be summarily rejected, simply because it is, for example, beer or tobacco tobac-co advertising. Although we recognize that it may be desirable to regulate some types of advertising, we believe be-lieve only in regulation and not in the total banning of any type. f) We do not wish to challenge the Publications Council's right to both choose and or select and remove Chronicle editors. However, we emphatically believe that legally such decisions cannot be used to enforce censorship. By this we mean that the Publications Council cannot remove re-move a Chronicle editor simply because he prints or advertises ad-vertises a view with which they disagree. g) We believe that freedom to advertise is an essential right, since it has a fundamental effect as to whether a paper is financially dependent or independent of outside funds, and therefore independent of possible control and censorship. It is obvious that our city newspapers could be drastically restricted if they were not allowed advertising adver-tising freedom and had to depend upon donations. h) By actually printing beer and tobacco advertisements, we wish to pose the issue of freedom of advertising, and then, by injunction, or other legal means prevent the University. h) We do not believe it to be rational (or a legal approach) to ban tobacco advertising in toto. In particular, it is not permissible to do so because the University accepts tax moneys which are largely derived from people who do not, in fact, regard tobacco as being harmful enough to either forbid smoking or to ban tobacco advertising in the newspapers. |