Posted on 04/14/2008 1:12:19 PM PDT by Lucky9teen
No radio stations will be broadcast on shuttle buses on the Arizona State University campus until the school comes up with a policy, the bus company said Monday, as a debate over the First Amendment raged after News/Talk 92-3 KTAR was banned from the buses.
The announcement came from Steve Kuenzi with Coach America, which operates eight shuttle routes on the Tempe campus. The university ordered that KTAR-FM not be played on the shuttle buses in a note sent with bus drivers' pay checks last Friday. The university said one student had complained twice about comments made by KTAR-FM talk show host Darrell Ankarlo.
``All we've done is we've had the radios turned off, effective today, until the university gives us guidance as to what they expect of us with the radios. We work at their whim," Kuenzi said.
Meanwhile, some students expressed disappointment at the university's stand on the matter.
``What did he say that was so offensive?" asked Chelsea Kurtz. Told that no one knew details of the complaint yet, Kurtz said, ``That's too bad. I hope he can get on the radio again."
Bus rider Yossi Wolfe said, ``I don't want to take sides or anything, but I think sometimes liberals misuse the free speech thing and they kind of use it to their advantage. When somebody else goes and uses the free speech amendment, it's like, `Oh, wow, you can't say that.'"
Wolfe said he would like to know what Ankarlo said to trigger the complaints. KTAR-FM, meanwhile, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the complaints about Ankarlo.
Another student said, ``I wouild think something like this would take the petitions of thousands of students, or at least hundreds, before it got banned from the bus."
The chairman of the Radio and Television News Directors Association was among those who said ASU is messing with a constitutional right by banning KTAR-FM from its shuttle buses.
``If it hasn't been a practice discouraged in the past, it seems to me that the issue now is not that anything is playing on the radio, it's that these particular comments on KTAR are being subjected to scrutiny because of the content. I think that's where you're getting into a First Amendment issue," Ed Esposito said.
Bus drivers told KTAR-FM they received a memo with their paychecks last Friday that said they should tune in to a ``more generic" station or not play the radio at all.
Esposito said ASU can't ban just one station because someone didn't like what they heard.
``It's not that there was a radio program airing on the bus, it's this particular radio program, and I think that's where you get into some really sticky free speech issues."
KTAR-FM's news department contacted ASU officials for comment. The university said it would have no comment until after the weekend. A comment could come as early as today.
KTAR management wrote to Coach America on Friday and said the ban violates free-speech rights on a taxpayer-funded campus and taxpayer-funded bus.
ASU should have asked some questions before it banned KTAR-FM, Esposito said.
``Why wouldn't they go to the trouble of bringing in the talk show host because it seems as though this is some kind of First Amendment star chamber we're in where they're making decisions without doing a full investigation first?" Esposito asked. ``That kind of seems backward in this whole concept of what kind of due process we have to hear complaints, encourage debate and talk these things out... This is, literally, like shoot first and ask questions later."
Esposito added, ``If someone happened to be reading a book or newspaper that someone didn't care for on the bus, would they also have the right to kick that rider or ask them to put that newspaper or that magazine or that book away?"
``What makes it even more surprising is that this is a bus company that is doing business in a place that's a bastion of thought and debate and speech, it's just incomprehensible."
Ankarlo said the bus ban flies in the face of ASU's stated policy that is strongly committed to academic freedom and free speech.
``What better joke is there than a major U.S. institution like ASU saying, `We don't value your opinion and we don't want you, a U.S. citizen, to give your opinion on our tax-dollar supported campus,'" Ankarlo said. ``For the college and the bus company to shut us off because they don't like what we're saying, you talk about an attack on the very process of learning in this country. I have to tell you, it's an embarrassment to the state."
He added, ``Taxpayer dollars support the university, the university allegedly tells the bus company, `shut Ankarlo up.' I have a First Amendment right to say what I want to say, I learned that in college."
The bus driver who told KTAR about the ban said he has listened to the station for two years. He said students ``are supposed to be mature adults who have open minds."
ASU Law Professor Paul Bender said he believes the restrictions violate the First Amendment.
"The fact that they are discriminating among stations on the basis of what they said... deciding to censor some speech because you disagree with it, that's unconstitutional," said Bender.
Bender said an exception could be provided if the university had a "really, really, really strong reason for doing that."
Students on ASU's Tempe campus said they were upset at the decision and considered it censorship.
"I'm going to be honest with you. I don't agree with probably 50 percent of the things Ankarlo says, maybe even more, and I still listen to it," said Casey, a student who called into KTAR-FM's Mac Watson Show. Casey said he regularly rides the buses in question and confirmed News/Talk 92.3 KTAR is always played on the overhead speakers.
"The reason I listen to [KTAR-FM] is I will never be able to defend what I believe, unless I know what other people believe. I think it's part of my education that I need to understand other people's point of view."
Casey said he doesn't understand ASU's move.
"It makes no sense to me. I don't think it was at all rational and I'm pretty upset because if someone complained about content, that's just part of life. No one's going to agree with everything."
This is also the station that carries Glenn Beck in Phoenix.
As Liberals say “The First Amendment is for me but not for thee” ..... they demand their 1st. Amendment rights but deny it to others, meaning Conservatives and ......
Kind of reminds me of the recent story about a woman who was kicked off a bus for reading the bible to her child on the bus. Just another sign of the times. Free speech is dying and liberals are showing their true colors.
Funny they used the “taxpayer funded” argument for this. Why is this not an issue when there is direct leftwing indoctrination in the classroom?
The First Amendment prevents the federal government from attempting to regulate free speech; it has been interpreted to extend to the states. It may or may not apply to a college campus.
I wonder if they have an ASCAP license for each and every bus they run, though, for public performance of licensed music?
In any case - the Lib’s want it their way on or off campus. You start a White’s only club and see what happens or a Christian only club - but see what happens if a Black Heritage club or Islamic club is started .....
You’re right but the issue here is that the university specifically told the bus company that only KTAR must be turned off, other stations were allowed to be on. In other words a publicly funded university told its chartered bus line that was paid for with public funds to limit the free speech selectively for one channel, that is IMO opinion unconstitutional, either ban all radio on the bus or say nothing.
The actual claim is that KTAR is somehow being censored - if there was a sign on the bus that said you couldn't listen to that station on your own headphones, that would be censorship. It's a business choice, just as playing the radio was a business choice.
Disagree, it became a free speech issue when they selected to exclude the station while telling them others where OK. If we are talking about a private business it is fine but we are talking but a governmental entity saying what can or cannot be played at the exclusion of others. Even the lawyers at ASU have spoken out against ASU for doing this.
Effective immediately radio stations can only play NPR.
Just because lawyers are all thrilled about this, the constitution is a pretty simplistic document. Not everything on the planet should be litigated. If riders on the line want to listen to KTAR, toss buds in the ears and listen to it.
If the bus line had turned off Air America, I sincerely doubt anyone on this forum would have lept up declaring it's a constitutional issue.
Any bus that is contracted loses its privacy when it works for the government first of all, next it is illegal to drive with buds in both of your ears. And finally you completely miss the point of why there is an issue at all. If ASU decided all of a sudden that the bus should only have one station tuned in that was their channel or say that they said all music played on the bus must be only so loud as to not bother another person, which is a really common rule on buses, then there would be no issue. But the government cannot state what can be specifically excluded or allowed unless they can determine harm or malfeasance. I am personally taking the lawyers side on this one.
I need an ASCAP license to listen to the radio in my car? That's what's going on in the bus - broadcast radio...
No, the bus company needs the license to play the radio in their buses. It is commercial rebroadcasting.
When I was in high school, some of us would complain about the country music that was played. Didn’t make a lick of difference.
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