MARQUETTE, MI-- A federal judge has denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to keep Cheryl Reed as adviser of NMU newspaper The North Wind.
Judge R. Allan Edgar issued the ruling in Marquette federal court Monday.
Reed and managing editor Michael Williams sued four student members of the paper’s board of directors and vice-president of enrollment and student services Steve Neiheisel. They said their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when Reed was fired and Williams not considered for the editor post following a series of stories critical of the university.
The judge disagreed, saying the student members of the board are not state actors and Reed did not engage in any protected speech. Current bylaws state the editor is “responsible to the board for tone and content,” and board members were only doing their job, the judge said.
Edgar said the case comes down to what could be called an editorial dispute, and could have been prevented by better communication between those involved. He said, “Instead, we have the odd spectacle of a professor suing her students.”
Reed released the following statement in response to Edgar’s ruling:
"Michael and I are saddened by the judge's decision. Not so much that he didn't keep me as the advisor, because that was never the absolute motivation of this case, but because he sees the North Wind board—folks who have no journalism training—as having control over editorial content, which means the North Wind is not an independent newspaper. It is a public relations publication."
