Rules regarding student elections at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo have ignited a debate about free speech and the press.

J.J. Jenkins writes at The College Fix.

FREE SPEECH ALERT: California Students Fined $100 for Talking to Reporters

Several students running for student government positions at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo have been fined $100 for talking to reporters–which counts as a violation of the school’s election code. Critics say the fines violate students’ first amendment rights. J.J. Jenkins, Editor-in-Chief of the school’s newspaper, offers an account of the fines below, and the ongoing dispute over free speech rights on campus.

“Active campaigning is defined as a non-verbal public display or distribution of specific information (physical or electronic) about any ASI candidate.”

That’s what the Associated Students Inc. (ASI) election code prohibits prior to 10 days before an election.

I’m communicating non-verbally now. If I were to write the names of the four candidates for ASI President, it would put them in violation of the election code and a fine could be levied. In fact, if you were to write a comment or tweet naming a student in connection with “ASI presidential candidate,” you too could open them up to a violation.

Fines against two candidates — who I won’t name again here — have been authorized after they or their campaign staff spoke with Mustang News last week and we printed their quotes.

We ran a story about those fines Tuesday, and ASI declared the candidates to be in violation of the code again. We printed a story about the second violation because it was newsworthy — predictably resulting in a third violation.

It’s a vicious cycle. We get it, and so does ASI. But it highlights an infringement on the candidates’ right to free speech, the right to speak with a newspaper and have their words distributed to a wider audience.

Consequently, it has put us in the unenviable position of reporting news knowing it could result in fines to innocent candidates. But if we tailor our news coverage to what ASI deems appropriate, we aren’t doing our job as independent investigators of facts on this campus.