It’s unfortunate some government officials insist on setting up adversarial relationships between the press and the individuals and organizations they cover. The First Amendment’s provision for the freedom of press does not make that free press, whether produced by students or not, into the enemy of the government, but continuing litigation concerning the freedoms of college newspapers causes one to wonder if the media are incorrectly perceived as a threat to be combatted.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has successfully petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, to rehear a case decided in April in which it determined that university officials at Governors State in Chicago could not review the university’s student newspaper, the Innovator, before it went to press.

The policy of the Innovator’s publishing board was that its student staff … “will determine content and format of their respective publications without censorship or advance approval,” according to court documents filed in the case.

Since January, freedom from censorship has allowed the Daily to cover an attempted suicide and a successful suicide by ISU students.

We’ve examined an incident involving former ISU basketball coach Larry Eustachy on the Kansas State campus when he allegedly asked a female student for oral sex.

Recently, reactions from students, alumni and ISU employees to the closing of the ISU Dairy Farm have made the Daily’s pages — and while we do not imply the ISU administration would have considered restricting speech on that topic, it was exactly the sort of controversial issue that the Daily (and other newspapers) need freedom to fairly, accurately and completely report.

That’s the other side of the bargain: the responsibility of student journalists to act in a professional manner. Professionalism is important for all journalists, but those of us in college (and our high school counterparts) are perfectly capable of it without prior review.

The state of Iowa remains in front of much of the nation in providing this type of protection for its students and student journalists, as one of only a few states that has passed legislation opposing the Supreme Court’s 1988 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision that high school officials could censor a school-sponsored newspaper.

The entire controversy is silly. Student media deserve — and are granted by the First Amendment — the right to serve the public by the use of the free press. Attempts to abridge that right should not succeed: The Seventh Circuit court should decide against reviewing the Governors State case just as they did in April.

Editorial Board: Nicole Paseka, Amy Schierbrock, Alicia Ebaugh, Ayrel Clark, Lucas Grundmeier