A judge recently ruled in favor of The Cavalier Daily, Inc. and Educational Media Company at Virginia Tech, Inc., publisher of Virginia Tech's Collegiate Times, regarding their publications' right to sell advertisements promoting alcoholic beverages.
The American Civil Liberties Union represented the publications in the lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
"We got involved in the case because there was an important First Amendment principle involved," said Rebecca Glenberg, ACLU of Virginia legal director. "The government wanted to reduce alcohol consumption on college campuses [and] they assumed that banning alcohol advertisement would accomplish that."
ABC regulations stated that a college newspaper is not permitted to advertise beer, wine or mixed beverages except in reference to a dining establishment.
"Under the First Amendment the government is not entitled to solve a problem by restricting free speech unless it can demonstrate that the restriction can solve the problem, and there are no better ways of solving the problem," Glenberg said. "Both of those ingredients are not present here ... the government was not able to show that the regulations would prevent underage alcohol consumption."
Glenberg added that the regulations not only impeded the newspapers' right to free speech but also caused an estimated $30,000-per-year loss in advertising revenue for both publications.
"I'm glad that the advertisements we will print in the future will reflect the kinds of ads that our competitors are able to print," Mills said, adding that The Cavalier Daily will be able to begin printing alcohol advertisements following notice of an injunction, which has not yet occurred.
Amie Steele, Collegiate Times editor-in-chief, echoed Mills' sentiment, noting the importance of the decision.
"We're obviously pleased with the outcome because we saw that this severely threatened our advertising revenues," Steele said. "And on an editorial side we ... felt like this hindered our freedom of speech and freedom of the press."
An ABC representative said ABC had not been able to review the case and therefore could not yet issue a statement concerning the judge's decision.
Editor's note: Editor-in-chief Elizabeth Mills did not edit this article as it contains her quotations.
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