Seth Stern is director of initiatives at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Clayton Weimers is the executive director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in North America.
donald trump received Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping stood outside the White House with visiting Chinese journalists, while journalists from the news media he had expelled stood outside the White House. Trump once joked that China is the country that jails the most journalists in the world and “has the friendliest press corps.” Now, his followers in Alabama are embracing Trump’s cause, emulating the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on information control at the local level, issuing edicts allowing so-called independent public radio reporters to speak out.
The Alabama Legislature passed a bill in late March requiring all state and local entities to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” consistent with one of the many executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office. The legislation does not provide penalties for violations, but its sponsor, state Rep. David Standridge, called it “an opportunity to make a patriotic statement” on the House floor in January. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Trump ally, signed the bill into law.
Birmingham public radio station WBHM told listeners in a letter from Will Dahlberg, the station’s executive director and general manager, that the University of Alabama at Birmingham forces it to use the Legislature’s preferred language in its coverage due to a law that took effect Oct. 1. The move puts it at odds with NPR, of which it is a member station. The Associated Press, which publishes a style guide used by newsrooms nationwide; and other news organizations. The station is licensed by the university and its employees are both state and University of Alabama employees. Nonetheless, WBHM’s Journalistic Integrity Code emphasizes the newsroom’s independence, stating that the university “should not and cannot be expected to exert influence over WBHM’s journalists and its independent editorial process.”
Failure to implement the new language “could result in disciplinary action or termination of the employee and impact WBHM’s relationships and support from UAB,” Dahlberg wrote. But there is nothing in the law that requires the university to discipline or terminate anyone. In other words, the university took its teeth into a toothless law and used them to chew up the freedom of the press.
Dahlberg also announced in the letter that he would be resigning and leaving the station. His resignation was supposed to be effective Oct. 16, but he posted an update saying the university told him Monday morning that he should pack his bags immediately. We can’t say with certainty whether the university hastened Dahlberg’s departure because of the message he delivered to audiences and the criticism it inspired, but the timing is certainly questionable.
So why did the University of Alabama at Birmingham choose to embarrass itself rather than stand up for journalists and the First Amendment? As ridiculous as Alabama’s Gulf of America law is, its text does not tie the university’s hands. The university doesn’t even need to file a legal challenge to challenge the law – it can get WBHM to ignore it and support its employees.
The university could have taken the position that it was unrealistic and onerous for the government to choose what journalists had to say.
The law only refers to “state and local entities” and does not mention the media. It contains no penalties for non-compliance and limits its authority to “where practicable,” granting passage when compliance would “create an operational or financial burden.” Forcing speech is never feasible because it is unconstitutional, but the operational and financial burdens of compliance are also significant. For example, WBHM gets domestic content from NPR and the Associated Press. Will they refuse to take stories like “Gulf of Mexico” and fill that time with original reporting that they don’t have the budget or hiring for? Or should they intercept and edit these stories in some way that might violate their contractual obligations?
The Supreme Court also has extensive precedent on claims that the government cannot let journalists speak. In 1943, in a landmark case over whether the state could force students to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the court wrote: “If there is a star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or low, can prescribe what is orthodox in matters of political, nationalist, religious, or other opinion, or compel citizens to profess or practice their faith.
Recently, some conservatives celebrated the 2024 NRA v. Vullo decision, which found that public officials cannot “use state power to punish or suppress unpopular speech.” Publicly funded radio stations are no exception. In 1984, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on editorials by public broadcasters that received federal funds, holding that funding a station did not give the government the right to control its journalism—a principle confirmed in March when a federal judge rejected Trump’s executive order to defund NPR and PBS.
The university could have taken the position that, first, public radio stations are not state entities and, second, that it is impractical and onerous for the government to choose what journalists have to say. Last but not least, despite Trump’s best efforts to cast it aside, universities should take the position that the First Amendment still exists to protect us all.
Just as law firms, news outlets, universities and other institutions that settled with Trump to stay in his good graces chose to cave when they could have easily fought back (as other institutions have successfully done), so too did the University of Alabama at Birmingham make the cowardly choice to comply in advance.
If anything, its surrender was worse because there was no indication that the state intended or could fight. Is the Alabama Legislature really so determined to enforce Standridge’s stupid law that it’s wasting taxpayer money on a constitutional battle that may not be winnable? Maybe, but the university could at least wait and see how or if the state responds.
Notably, Ivey is an ex-officio member of the University of Alabama System’s Board of Trustees. The commission released its annual free speech report in August. It consists of an identical paragraph that is copied and pasted every year, the only changes being the dates and number of “events” held on campus that year, concluding that ” [free speech] Policies have been met repeatedly without a single alleged breach, further illustrating their effectiveness in appropriately achieving the Board’s objectives. ”
One has to wonder whether the university will copy and paste this conclusion again next year, despite pressure to respond to WBHM’s talking points.