http://www.blackcollegewire.org/index.php?option=com_ywp_blog&task=view&id=5834&Itemid=28
By Ashley Roque -- Black College Wire
Feb. 17, 2010
The September 1971 memo from then-Chancellor Albert N. Whiting was
clear enough: "I am here announcing that all funds for the
publication of the Campus Echo have been temporarily suspended …"
The chancellor's memo threatened to permanently suspend University
sponsorship of the Campus Echo unless a consensus could be reached
with the Campus Echo editor regarding "standard journalistic criteria."
Another University-sponsored edition of the Campus Echo would not
appear until the fall of 1973. During the intervening two years, the
matter was tried first in district courts and then in federal appeals courts.
When the dust finally settled, the Campus Echo's editor-in-chief,
Johnnie Edward "Jae" Joyner, and SGA president Harvey White were
the victors in one of the nation's landmark cases in student press law.
The case, officially titled Joyner v. Whiting, ruled that the
University had violated the First Amendment by cutting funding for
the Campus Echo.
In a 3-1 ruling, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond
overturned the lower court's ruling in favor of Whiting with the
following statement:
"We reverse [the lower court's decision] because the president's
irrevocable withdrawal of financial support from the Echo and the
court's decree reinforcing this action abridge the freedom of the
press in violation of the First Amendment."
Joyner, recalling the verdict, said his first reaction was relief. "I
just sat down in the stairwell and cried," he said.
Since the verdict, Joyner v. Whiting has been repeatedly cited,
according to Mike Hiestand, an attorney and legal consultant for the
Student Press Law Center, which is dedicated to protecting the free
speech of students.
"Any sort of case involving college press laws definitely has Joyner
v. Whiting as support for the defense of college student's freedom of
speech," said Hiestand.
The trouble began with the September 16, 1971 issue of the Campus
Echo. The front-page banner headline read: IS NCCU STILL A BLACK
SCHOOL [sic]. The headline to the top story read: LOOK AND YOU SHALL SEE.
No byline is given to the writer of the article which reads more
like an editorial than a news story but court documents indicate
that the story was written by then-editor-in-chief Jae Joyner.
In the article, Joyner expresses his concern that too many white
students are attending NCCU.
"There is a rapidly growing white population on our campus," he
writes. "Black students on this campus have never made it clear to
those people that we are indeed separate from them … and wish to
remain so ... and until we assume the role of a strong, proud people
we will continue to be co-opted."
White students, he writes, are getting "special privileges" and
"don't have to stand in long registration lines." And now, he writes,
whites are "teaching us.
"Our institutions are being taken away from us," writes Joyner, who
supports his case with a quote from civil rights activist H. Rap
Brown: "'I do what I must out of the love for my people. My will is
to fight. Resistance is not enough. Aggression is the order of the day.'"
Page two of the edition includes this announcement:"ATTENTION:
Beginning next issue The Campus Echo will not run white advertising."
The edition's Afro-centricism is highlighted by the Campus Echo
nameplate, on which the words "Campus" and "Echo" are separated with
an image of Africa and the word "KoKayi."
The article ends with: "Now will you tell me, whose institution is
NCCU? Theirs? Or Ours?"
Elsewhere, Joyner had announced that only black students would be
allowed to work at the Campus Echo.
Chancellor Albert Whiting's response was swift. In a memo announcing
that University funding would be cut from the paper, he wrote that
the September 16 issue of the Campus Echo didn't meet "standard
journalistic criteria" and that it didn't "represent fairly the full
spectrum of views on this campus." He said that Joyner's article was
full of "racial divisiveness and antagonism."
Whiting, who had been advised by North Carolina's attorney general
that the University could lose federal funding, stated that Joyner
was promoting segregation and that he violated equal protection
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"The point that I wish to make," wrote Whiting in the memorandum, "is
that as a State-Supported Institution especially, but also in terms
of what is morally and legally right, this institution is not a
'Black University' and does not intend to become one."
In a recent interview, Whiting said, "The schools were already
integrated when Joyner became the editor. Joyner was violating the
law by not allowing white students to write for the Echo."
Immediately after Whiting cut funding, students begin picketing in
front of his home.
Whiting's decision to cut funding was backed by the UNC Board of Governors.
The case became a showdown between free speech, protected by the
First Amendment, and equal rights in this case for whites
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Twice in U.S. history, the Supreme Court has declared it
unconstitutional to censor publication: in 1931 (Near v. Minnesota)
and in 1971 (New York Times Co v. United States).
In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, a case
where high school students were forbidden to wear black armbands with
peace symbols, the courts ruled that the First Amendment applied to
public schools as long as the speech did not disrupt of school operations.
According to the Tinker standard, public universities cannot take
away funding just because the material is controversial or because
administrators don't like what is being said.
But Joyner and Harvey White did not win everything. The courts held
that Whiting had the right to refute Joyner's black-only policies, a
position Joyner had already conceded earlier with a statement that
white students could work at the Campus Echo and that white companies
that employed on an equal opportunity basis could advertise with the paper.
Acording to David Pollitt, the Chapel Hill civil rights attorney who
represented the Campus Echo in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,
the case must be understood in light of the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
These were the years of Malcom X, the Jackson State killings, the
Black Panther Party and the Vietnam War.
"The general atmosphere of those years was troublesome," said
Pollitt, who explained that Joyner's position reflected the
atmosphere of revolution and turbulence.
"To combat the racism of the time, there grew a sense of black
militancy with the black power movement to fight the racism, and
Joyner was just part of those times," said Pollitt.
In a recent interview, White, the SGA president who joined Joyner in
the case, explained that with integration, many people felt that
HBCUs would lose their heritage and would be unable to provide the
support African Americans needed.
"Because the chancellor did not include students in making this
decision, we felt that it should not be the president's prerogative
to permanently cut the funding," said White.
White said students tried to keep an off-campus version of Campus
Echo going when the funding was cut.
"To raise funds, we put on a dance, had house parties, and we gave
money out of our own pockets," he said. "There were even a few
professors who helped support us financially."
According to Tom Evans, an English professor who came to the
University in 1969, the Durham Morning Herald, which later merged
into the Herald Sun, helped fund some of the off-campus publications.
In a recent interview, Joyner said his decision to take on the
University created a lot of personal difficulties and that now, he is
simply "tired" of having the issue brought up. He explained that
while there was support from many student leaders, many students saw
his decision to take the University to court as "radical."
He said that many students complained that he was doing more harm than good.
"People who I thought were friends walked away when the situation got
tough," Joyner said. "I lost a lot of friends for standing up for the Echo."
After graduating, Joyner went on to teach in several public
elementary and middle schools in North Carolina. He now teaches at an
alternative school in Petersburg, Va. Joyner and his wife have
raised three children.
Harvey White went on to earn a Ph.D. in public administration from
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a dean of the
School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Southern University in
Louisiana and now teaches public affairs and international
development at the University of Pittsburgh.
Before coming to NCCU, Whiting was the dean of faculty at Morgan
State University. Whiting worked at NCCU for 16 years. He served as
president from 1967-1972 and chancellor from 1972-1982. During his
tenure as chancellor, North Carolina College became N.C. Central
University. Whiting helped launch the University's School of Business.
Evans recalled that years after the landmark case, he saw Joyner and
Whiting at a reception at the NCCU Art Museum.
The commotion had settled," he said. "Joyner was in a three- piece
suit and not his army fatigues. Joyner and Whiting were civil and respectful."
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