- Date:
- March 19, 1973
- Location:
- Missouri
- United States
- Participants:
- University of Missouri
- Barbara Papish
Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri
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What is the Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri case?
Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri is a legal case involving the expulsion of a student, Barbara Papish, from the University of Missouri for distributing a newspaper deemed to contain indecent speech. The university took issue with a political cartoon depicting police officers raping the Statue of Liberty and the goddess of justice, as well as an article containing a vulgar expression.
Papish, a journalism graduate student, was initially placed on disciplinary probation after the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct determined she violated a university bylaw against indecent conduct or speech. After exhausting her review rights within the university, she filed an unsuccessful suit in federal district court, claiming her expulsion violated her First Amendment rights.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately held on March 19, 1973, that the university's expulsion of Papish violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment.
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Who were the people or groups involved in this case?
The parties involved in Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri were Barbara Papish, a student at the University of Missouri, and the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the University of Missouri violated Papish's First Amendment rights by expelling her for distributing a newspaper deemed indecent. The Supreme Court reversed the decisions of the lower courts, citing its own precedents in Healy v. James (1972) and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), which protect students' free speech rights on campus.
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What events led to the Papish v. Board of Curators court case?
Barbara Papish, a journalism graduate student at the University of Missouri, was expelled for distributing an issue of the Free Press Underground newspaper, which the university deemed contained indecent speech. The paper included a political cartoon depicting police officers raping the Statue of Liberty and the goddess of justice, as well as an article with a vulgar title.
The university's Faculty Committee on Student Conduct decided that Papish had violated a bylaw prohibiting indecent conduct or speech and placed her on disciplinary probation. After the university's chancellor and board of curators affirmed her expulsion, Papish unsuccessfully filed suit in a federal district court in Missouri, asserting that her expulsion violated her First Amendment rights. The district court sided with the university, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed that decision. The U.S. Supreme Court later held that the university violated Papish’s free speech rights.
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What was the main legal question or issue in this case?
The central legal issue in Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri was whether the University of Missouri violated Barbara Papish's First Amendment rights when they expelled her for distributing a newspaper deemed to contain "indecent speech." The university took issue with a political cartoon depicting police officers raping the Statue of Liberty and the goddess of justice, as well as an article containing a vulgar expression. Papish argued that her expulsion, contravened the Civil Rights Act of 1871, as her actions were protected under the First Amendment.
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How did the Supreme Court rule in Papish v. Board of Curators, and why?
In Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that the University of Missouri violated Barbara Papish's First Amendment rights by expelling her for distributing a newspaper containing "indecent speech." The Court reversed decisions from the district and appellate courts, citing its previous ruling in Healy v. James (1972), which recognized the authority of public colleges to enforce reasonable conduct rules.
However, referencing Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), the Court held that university campuses are not exempt from the First Amendment. It found that the university had acted unconstitutionally by expelling Papish based on the newspaper's content rather than the time, place, or manner of its distribution. The Court clarified that disseminating offensive ideas is not sufficient grounds to ban student groups from campuses and that neither the cartoon nor the article were legally obscene or unprotected by the First Amendment.
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What effect did this case have on freedom of speech in schools and universities?
In Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri (1973), the Supreme Court held that a public university violated a student's First Amendment rights by expelling her for distributing a newspaper deemed indecent.
Citing Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), the Court asserted that college campuses are not immune to the First Amendment. It clarified that disseminating even offensive ideas isn't enough to ban student groups and that universities cannot prohibit ideas, regardless of offensiveness, in the name of decency. The Court concluded the university acted unconstitutionally by expelling the student based on the newspaper's content, not the time, place, or manner of its distribution.
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Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 19, 1973, held in a per curiam (unsigned) opinion that the expulsion of a student from a public university for distributing on campus a newspaper that contained what the university deemed “indecent speech” violated the student’s free speech rights under the First Amendment.
Facts of the case
Barbara Papish, a 32-year-old graduate student majoring in journalism at the University of Missouri, was expelled for distributing an issue of the Free Press Underground newspaper, published by the nonprofit Columbia Free Press Corporation. According to university officials, the paper contained forms of what they described as indecent speech. The newspaper had been sold on campus for more than four years with authorization from officials in the university’s business office. The issue of the newspaper in question was unacceptable to university officials because it included a political cartoon depicting police officers raping the Statue of Liberty and the goddess of justice and an article with a title containing a vulgar expression. Papish was a staff member of the Free Press Underground.
The student, who had been pursuing a graduate degree for more than five years when the newspaper episode occurred, was on academic probation. After the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct decided that the student had violated a university bylaw prohibiting “indecent conduct or speech,” she was placed on disciplinary probation. The student subsequently exhausted her rights to review within the university after its chancellor and board of curators affirmed her expulsion. Although the student was allowed to remain on campus until the end of the semester, she was not given credit for the one course she passed.
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Papish unsuccessfully filed suit in a federal district court in Missouri, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (a law that was enacted to fight discrimination against African Americans during Reconstruction), asserting that she was expelled for activities protected by the First Amendment. The district court found in favour of the university, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed that decision.
The Supreme Court’s ruling
In its ruling, the Supreme Court reversed the decisions of the district and appellate courts. The Court noted that the Eighth Circuit’s ruling had come just before its own judgment in Healy v. James (1972), in which it held that officials at public colleges and universities have the ability and a responsibility to enforce reasonable rules governing student conduct. Yet, acknowledging its preceding decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), in which it had upheld the free speech rights of high-school students who wore black armbands to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War, the Court pointed out that college and university campuses are not closed societies that are immune to the sweep of the First Amendment.
In Healy the Court ruled that officials had overstepped their bounds by forbidding students from organizing a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on the grounds that such an organization might have caused a disruption on campus. On that basis, the Supreme Court in Papish argued that the mere dissemination of offensive ideas is an insufficient ground on which to bar student groups from campuses. The Court thus made it clear that the propagation of ideas on a state university campus, regardless of their offensiveness, cannot be proscribed in the name of “conventions of decency,” as the Eighth Circuit had described that interest in its contrary ruling. The Court, relying on its own precedent in free speech cases in noneducation contexts, was clear that neither the political cartoon nor the title was legally obscene or unprotected under the First Amendment. The Court concluded that, in expelling the student because of the content of the newspaper rather than because of the time, place, or manner of its distribution on campus, university officials had acted unconstitutionally.