BY JOHN K. WILSON
Liberty University has a long history of repression, including suppressing freedom of the press on campus by censoring its student newspaper. But Liberty reached a new low for liberty last week when president Jerry Falwell Jr. announced that the university has issued arrest warrants against two reporters for the crime of writing critical news about Falwell and Liberty for the New York Times and ProPublica.
I briefly mention the Liberty case in my short essay about free expression and COVID-19 in the latest Speech Spotlight for the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, where I am a fellow.
But I wanted to examine Liberty’s efforts to silence freedom of the press in more detail because it is so extreme and reflects a disturbing trend on college campuses to try to control media coverage.
Liberty University had attracted media attention because Falwell made numerous public comments stating his skepticism about the pandemic problem and declaring that he wouldn’t shut down the campus, even though he did eventually move all classes online after the state banned large gatherings. On March 10, Falwell appeared on “Fox & Friends to say, “It’s just strange to me how many are overreacting” to the pandemic, adding, “maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.”
Liberty University might be right to complain that they received excessive scrutiny for an approach similar to those made by other universities who wanted to provide housing for some students. But criticism is part of living in a free society. Liberty is perfectly free to criticize news reports if it thinks they are wrong. However, real universities don’t threaten their critics or arrest reporters for doing their jobs.
The New York Times declared in a statement, “Our freelance photographer was engaged in the most routine form of news gathering: taking a picture of a person who was interviewed for a news story. We are disappointed that Liberty University would decide to make that into a criminal case and go after a freelance journalist because its officials were unhappy with press coverage of the university’s decision to convene classes in the midst of the pandemic.” In-house counsel David McCraw has said that the Times freelance photographer, Julia Rendleman, was invited to campus by the student who was photographed.
Katie Townsend, legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, noted: “These arrest warrants appear to be intended to harass journalists who were simply, and rightly, doing their jobs — reporting on the impact of Liberty University’s decision to partially reopen during a pandemic — and to intimidate other reporters from doing the same type of reporting. People across the country are relying on the news media for accurate information about the coronavirus and how institutions are responding to it. Journalists should not face retaliation or threats of criminal penalties for fulfilling that responsibility.”
Professional journalists are not the only ones threatened by Liberty’s long record of suppressing free speech. One student wrote to the New York Times, “I’m not allowed to talk to you because I’m an employee here.” Another student, Calum Best, wrote a Facebook post criticizing Falwell’s declaration that “I don’t see us doing the same thing that other schools have done” in shutting down the campus. Liberty’s head of PR, Scott Lamb, quickly called Best that evening and put Best’s boss for his on-campus job on the call, for no apparent reason other than to make an implicit threat to his employment.
Liberty University’s attempt to persecute journalists for the crime of questioning Jerry Falwell Jr. is morally indefensible. It’s also legally incoherent. Falwell claimed that the journalists were guilty of violating anti-trespassing signs on campus. But in fact there is no legal case against the reporters.
Many private universities have extremely restrictive media policies that require the press (and only the media) to get permission from the university before being allowed on campus. However, Liberty University does not appear to have any such policy (Liberty did not respond to my request for more information), and its newsroom page fails to prominently provide any media policy required for the press (and a short, inadequate mention in its media kit about checking in is not adequate notice)..
Without a media policy, journalists are treated like anybody else. Liberty may try to say that it has no trespassing signs around campus, but those don’t apply if Liberty openly invites people on to its campus. And Liberty does just that: In the section of its website on “visiting opportunities,” Liberty explicitly said, “Be Our Guest.” and added, “we can’t wait to welcome you to campus — no matter how you choose to visit!” A section on daily campus tours says, “Anyone is welcome to join.” (https://www.liberty.edu/residential/visit-us/)
So finding out more about Liberty was one of the clear examples of what Liberty itself considers “official university business.”Perhaps Liberty will one day adopt and publicize a media policy that allows it to ban reporters (although even then a trespassing charge would be difficult to sustain under these circumstances). But Liberty’s attempt to arrest journalists, and the widespread negative reaction to it, should make universities question whether repressive media policies have any place at institutions committed to freedom of expression. Harvard’s policy declares, “Reporting, photographing, and videotaping are prohibited on campus without prior permission.” Do Harvard and other elite private universities really want to have a media policy more repressive than a university that issues arrest warrants to journalists?
If seeing a university try to arrest journalists shocks the conscience, and it does, then shouldn’t we also be appalled that hundreds of private universities have adopted policies that ban the media from campus without permission? Liberty University’s attack on the media exposes the kind of censorship demanded by Jerry Falwell, Jr. But it should also cause us to worry about the tactics of media manipulation and control that have become increasingly common in higher education.
Admittedly, I only skimmed the article but I did not see Liberty U’s side of this particular incident, which may be indefensible, esp. to the pseudo-liberal classes. Nonetheless, if they have policies about trespassing, for instance, even if a student invited a reporter on campus, then maybe (maybe!) an arrest warrant was justified — just as it might have at the secular Harvard, which receives scant mention. (I’m trying to imagine a HOW and WHY for this story, since the author didn’t provide it — unless I missed it.)
I hope that this case goes to court but I doubt it will. Probably Liberty’s Freedom of Religion trumps (pardon my French!) Freedom of the Press at a private university.
All private universities have the legal right to enact policies that suppress freedom of the press, ban freedom of speech, prohibit academic freedom, and impose authoritarian rule over students, faculty, and staff. But all of us should condemn any university that engages in such censorship, and not hide behind “freedom of religion” or “private property” as an excuse for repression. You can read the links to the articles and Liberty’s response if you care about the how and why of this dispute, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. We need to protect freedom of the press even when we disagree with the views expressed by the media. And when we disagree, the proper response is always counterspeech and never arrest warrants.
John K.: Of course, “All private universities have the legal right to enact policies that suppress freedom of the press, ban freedom of speech, prohibit academic freedom, and impose authoritarian rule over students, faculty, and staff.” Likewise, it is just as true that “all of us should condemn any university that engages in such censorship.”
There are bound to be constitutional conflicts between two important First Amendment rights: religion and the press. I agree that, as Justice Brandeis famously said (I’m paraphrasing), counter-speech is the best solution, However, I believe that arrest warrants are necessary when laws are broken. If the law is unjust or the suspect is innocent, that can be worked out in a court of law. Lobbying efforts within Liberty (and Harvard) against their current policies might help, as might efforts to change statutes related to on-campus activities.