A victory for the First Amendment

One of the founding principles of the United States of America was the freedom for individuals and journalists to criticize the government. It’s not by coincidence that the first amendment made to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. Basically, journalists are to be free to cover and critique officials and their actions without fear of censorship or retribution.

That’s why it was alarming when an arm of Kentucky state government tried two years ago to stop the Lexington Herald-Leader from publishing a syndicated column written by North Carolina-based psychologist John Rosemond. Rosemond’s columns generally deal with parenting, and some advice he gave to parents of a recalcitrant child sparked this controversy.

Rosemond didn’t take that demand lying down. He filed a suit in federal court, and earlier this month he won his case in a ruling handed down by U.S. District Judge Greg Van Tatenhove, based in Lexington.

This decision is nothing short of a major victory for the First Amendment and for advocates of a free, unrestrained press. The idea that a state agency would try to silence a columnist or a paper that publishes the columns he writes is a direct affront to one of the basic tenets of this country.

What’s next? Should the state try to censor Ann Landers or Dear Abby? What about Miss Manners or relationship columnist Carolyn Hax? Should the government try to take Dr. Phil off of television or Dr. Laura off the radio? Shall it become illegal for experts to offer advice on gardening, car care, cooking or interior decorating?

There’s a special term used when a governmental body tries to regulate what appears in the press. It’s called “prior restraint” and it’s generally frowned upon.

As a student journalist at Morehead State University, I had my own run-in with an attempt at prior restraint. Late in my scholastic career, a local option election was held in Morehead. Rowan County had been dry since Prohibition, and a student leader sought to change that. The requisite petition was filed and the wet-dry vote was scheduled.

The board governing student publications, made up mostly of faculty members and administrators, issued an edict that the student newspaper’s editorial page was forbidden to offer an opinion in favor of or against the wet-dry vote. Given that MSU is a state school, a number of student journalists felt the publications board was overstepping its bounds by imposing an agency-mandated restraint on the newspaper. I joined some of my fellow journalism students in writing to Kentucky’s attorney general, asking if the board’s action was legal. The resulting attorney general’s opinion ruled that the board’s edict was an act of prior restraint by a government agency, and thus illegal.

The attempted censorship of Rosemond was done after someone complained to the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology about one of his columns, in which he recommended that parents take away a teenager’s electronic devices and employ other disciplinary actions to deal with the child’s unruliness and bad grades. One component of the complaint was that Rosemond is licensed in North Carolina but not in Kentucky, and because of that his column should not be published in the Bluegrass State.

One big issue here is that Rosemond takes a more traditional view of parenting than a lot of new-age thinkers. He actually believes in discipline. He doesn’t think children should be spoiled or coddled. And that’s bound to upset those on the left who tend to populate the social science fields in governmental agencies. What could possibly be “unprofessional and unethical” about someone advising parents to ground their children if they misbehave or do poorly in school? Where I come from, that’s called “common sense” and “responsible parenting.”

This seems to be a classic case of someone trying to shut down the messenger because they don’t like the message. But fortunately for the concept of a free exchange of ideas in America, the government doesn’t get to decide who can say something and what they can say.

State officials say they are considering appealing Van Tatenhove’s ruling. The state psychology board was represented by Attorney General Jack Conway’s office in their attempted censorship of Rosemond and the Herald-Leader. The psychology board and Conway would be wise to take the spanking they got in court and move on. The First Amendment is not on their side.