Free as in Beer Speech
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I am pretty much a civil liberties absolutist. I avidly support the ACLU, both the organization and its mission.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to see beer ads in college newspapers as a free speech issue. This seems to be not about speech, but to be a Trojan Horse for more beer ads, as if there were a shortage of them already.
The answer could determine whether the student newspapers at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, which claim a mostly adult readership, are subject to a state prohibition against liquor advertising in college newspapers.
A decision is likely by early November.
The narrow issue is a remnant of a 2006 lawsuit filed by Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times and UVa’s Cavalier Daily challenging the decades-old ban. U.S. Magistrate Judge Hannah Lauck overturned it in 2008, ruling that it violated the papers’ constitutional rights to free speech.
That was reversed by a federal appeals court, which said the ban is narrowly tailored to serve the state’s interest in curbing underage drinking.
