Posted on April 10, 2008
Thanks to the lawsuit that the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times brought to the state, colleges in the Commonwealth can now legally print alcohol advertisements in campus newspapers.
A judge ruled in favor of the schools because he felt that the law in place was breaking the First Amendment right to free speech.
“I don’t think it would have any influence on underage drinking,” said Greg Groves, advertising executive. “Maybe if this was the only media source that students read, but it’s not.”
The potential increase in revenue was one of the main reasons the two universities brought this issue to the public.
“I agree with the court findings because I don’t think it’s fair to deny us that ad revenue,” Groves said.
The ruling now allows colleges and universities the same rights as town and city newspapers.
“We are on a more level playing field like the Daily News-Record, radio and TV,” Brad Jenkins, The Breeze’s General Manager said. “It set the precedent for all Virginia schools and it applies to everyone.”
The argument for the prosecutors was that the ads promoted underaged drinking to students not of the legal age.
“We are bombarded with alcohol all the time so what would it matter?” Jenkins asked.
However, others feel it could be responsible.
“Parents would look at it differently if their son or daughter were harmed because of an ad they saw,” said Roger Soenksen, The Breeze’s legal adviser.
But Soenksen added that if parents decided to sue because of it, they wouldn’t have much to go on.
“We would have a strong argument based on the First Amendment grounds,” Soenksen said. “But I would hope that they [ads department] would be working before it’s a problem.”
Groves said he and the ad department use the best judgment when deciding what to run.
“We don’t print anything too negative,” Groves said. “People are surrounded by alcohol ads all the time and you don’t hear too much about people going to sue [alcohol companies].”
Since alcohol ads can be run in the near future, Jenkins and the ad department will sit down to talk about when to begin running alcohol ads next fall.
“At the beginning of the year I will talk to Greg and say, ‘Is this something that you want to do?’” Jenkins said.
Although it would mean an increase in revenue, Soenksen added that there could be some ethics called into play.
“There will be some ethical dilemmas,” he said. “Would I say have an ad for happy hour? No. But places that have discount alcohol or stores that sell alcohol, yes.”
The ad department gets to decide what they will run based on what they feel is best for the student body.
There is an injunction in place for the next 30 days to allow for appeals to the case. Newspapers won’t be able to run alcohol ads until those 30 days have passed.
Va. Tech’s Collegiate Times is reportedly going to increase their revenue by $30,000 due to the amount of people attending the school and the fact that they are a daily paper. Soenksen said he felt that number was low. Although JMU won’t be near that number, the ads will help increase funds a great deal, according to Jenkins.
Va. Tech and UVA also had a stronger case because of the size of the schools.
“They have a larger percentage of individuals at the legal age or above,” Soenksen said.
“We have a lot of students lower than the drinking age, but those ads are on campus in other ways.”
