First, a bit of background on just what the Kaimin reporter was doing in the dorm when she was told to leave. This fall, amid record enrollment, the university found it had no dorm rooms for 148 students whom it had accepted for university housing. Those students were packed into “overflow” housing n primarily study rooms and student lounges n while UM waited to see how many freshmen assigned to dorm rooms did not show up for fall classes. This is an important campus story and it’s the Kaimin’s job to tell it. It’s a public safety issue n the Missoula fire marshal issued a deadline for getting students out of those basement rooms n but it’s also a human story. The Kaimin reporter was on her way to the basement to knock on the door to one of the overflow rooms to see whether the students living there would answer her questions about what it was like living in those cramped conditions.
The reporter was stopped by a residence hall student employee and told she could not go to those rooms because of “safety” concerns. After further discussion with Residence Life director Ron Brunell and Aronofsky, the Kaimin was told its reporter could not enter the dorms without permission because they were “soliciting,” an activity Aronofsky said the campus has long prohibited in the dorms. He repeats that argument in his column and adds that the prohibition goes beyond door-to-door solicitation to “other communications of any type in UM residence halls.” Such a prohibition would be flatly unconstitutional.
Aronofsky says even Residence Life employees may not enter dorm rooms without consent. Absolutely, and while he implies that’s what the Kaimin reporter was attempting to do, it’s just not true. No Kaimin reporter did, or would, try to enter a dorm room uninvited.
Students in dorm rooms are protected by rights of privacy for good reason, but there is nothing in the university handbook or regulations that could be interpreted to bar the press from public areas that any other person can access during open hours without prior permission. The Kaimin reporter was in the dorm in the afternoon, when the common areas of the dorms are open to the public. Under the UM counsel’s interpretation, the public can continue to go into those open areas, but the press cannot have the same rights as other members of the public.
Aronofsky makes the point as well that student journalists are permitted to go into the dorms with the permission of the director of Residence Life. In fairness, director Ron Brunell has not denied Kaimin reporters access when they have first secured his permission. But if it is truly the privacy rights of dorm residents that Aronofsky says the university is protecting, then how could Brunell waive those rights on the students’ behalf? And if breaking news stories occur in campus dorms, should student journalists first have to seek out the residence life director before covering the story? It would be like a Missoulian reporter trying to cover a house fire by first getting Mayor John Engen’s permission to stand on the sidewalk.
We have been on the faculty of the School of Journalism for 27 and 19 years, respectively. In all that time the Kaimin has never been barred from seeking information from students in campus dormitories. The story of overflow housing poses important questions for the university community. Should the university continue its policy of requiring all freshmen to live on campus when it does not have sufficient housing to accommodate them? Why was there such a significant mismatch between students and rooms? If fire safety regulations restrict the number of students that can share a living space and dictate the egress standards the university must observe, is it reasonable, or safe, for the university to be in violation of those standards for even a single day?
No one has a greater interest in the discussion of these questions, or their answers, than the affected students. Yet without press access to those students, their views and experiences are not likely to be heard. If students who find themselves crowded into overflow rooms don’t wish to share their thoughts or experiences with a student reporter who comes knocking on their door, all they have to do is answer “No thanks” to the reporter’s query.
Students don’t need a university official to decide for them whether they should have the chance to hear a reporter’s questions. That’s not “sound educational policy,” as Aronofsky would have us believe. That’s suppressing access to information at a place where the free exchange of ideas is a time-honored tradition. That’s locking the door to journalists who can ferret out the facts to inform the public. As Justice White said in a press case in 1972, “Without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated.” And journalists daily live by what writer Eudora Welty once said: “It is not my job to judge, but merely to pull the curtain back to reveal this hidden world behind it.“
Carol Van Valkenburg is a journalism professor and faculty adviser to the Montana Kaimin. Clem Work is a journalism professor, attorney and First Amendment scholar.
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