Satire On Campus Analysis

As we wrap up Free Press Week, we take a look today at the unique challenges that college students face when engaging in satire and humor on campus, from humor magazines and editorial cartoons to satirical flyers and blogs. Like newspaper theft and denial of newspaper funding (which we have already explored this week), this is an issue that FIRE has seen time and time again on university campuses over the years.

For any number of reasons, parody, jokes, and satire-whether in print or otherwise—tend to rankle students and university administrators alike as few other forms of expression do. Consequently, student humor is often the target of calls for campus censorship and punishment. This despite the fact that, as FIRE has argued many times,
Loyal Torch followers will remember that back in 2010, Audaer, a law student at Syracuse's College of Law, was subjected to a prolonged and wrongheaded disciplinary investigation for allegedly running an anonymous satirical blog about life in law school. In the style of The Onion, the blog attributed obviously fake quotes to students, faculty, and staff at the College of Law and generally made fun of life in law school. Even though the blog included a disclaimer making clear that "No actual news stories appear on the site," the College of Law threatened Audaer with harassment charges for more than three months, and, making matters worse, refused to reveal the identity of his accusers or what expression in particular had justified the charges. When Audaer and his attorney attempted to receive information from Syracuse about the charges, the law school brazenly demanded that they sign a gag order that would have effectively prevented any media from reporting on the case using this information and effectively prevented Audaer from interviewing witnesses. For allegedly engaging in purely protected speech, Audaer was even threatened with