Holding that there is no "on/off" switch when it comes to age, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against supporters of a student newspaper that was effectively censored by college administrators in Illinois five years ago.

According to court documents, student journalists with The Innovator filed charges after a school administrator threatened to withhold payment to the newspaper's printer if it did not allow administrators to sign off on each issue.

Students allege that Patricia A. Carter, dean of student affairs at Governors State University of Illinois, threatened to pull financing from the publication after several articles critical of the school's leadership appeared in the paper, according to a Student Press Law Center response to the ruling.

In overturning several lower court rulings, yesterday's 7-to-4 decision in Hosty v Carter relied on a 1988 Supreme Court decision dealing with a similar action at a high school, in which the principle removed several articles from the publication over concerns about content.

That case, Hazelwood School District v Kuhlmeier, found that the principle acted accordance with the law in removing stories dealing with divorce, teen pregnancy and sex from the school-sponsored publication. The stories were written as part of a journalism class assignment and the instructor submitted them for administrative review prior to publication, according to court filings.

The ruling in the high school case stated that speech rights for students at a public school were not the same as those of adults and that the paper was not a "forum for public expression." Additionally, the Court held that "Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."

Lower courts had ruled that the Hosty case was different from Hazelwood because it deals with a college level publication. But, on Monday, the Seventh Circuit Court said that in many cases, Hazelwood can apply to publications at higher learning institutions. The court expressed uncertainty as to whether the particulars of the case in question made the censorship unconstitutional and ruled that "public officials" like Dean Carter "need not predict, at their financial peril, how constitutional uncertainties will be resolved." The court thus granted Carter "qualified immunity" from the lawsuit.

In a statement released Tuesday, the plaintiffs, Margaret Hosty, Jeni Porche and Steven Barba, said they plan to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court.