A federal court will decide if new Iowa State distribution policies violate the First Amendment.

Partnership Press Inc. officials recently filed a lawsuit against the university.

“The lawsuit challenges the regulations by the university restricting or prohibiting the distribution of newspapers or periodicals on the Iowa State campus,” said Michael Giudicessi, attorney with Faegre and Benson LLP, attorneys for Partnership Press and Collegiate Publishing Co., the other plaintiff included in the suit.

Partnership Press is the parent company of the Ames Tribune.

Giudicessi said the origin of the suit is in the Feb. 1996 adoption of rules by the university and the following application of the rules to the newspapers of Partnership Press and Collegiate Publishing, publisher of The Campus Reader.

The lawsuit has been filed against Warren Madden, vice president of business and finance, Iowa State University and the state Board of Regents.

“The allegations of the lawsuit assert that the rules of the university violate the speech and press rights afforded to the public and the press under the First Amendment,” Giudicessi said.

ISU officials restrict distribution of publications that aren’t “affiliated” with the university, like the Iowa State Daily.

Paul Tanaka, director of University Legal Services, said, “The university regards the Iowa State Daily as a learning laboratory operating under real-world conditions. Our policy on distribution is intended to provide a forum for students and to encourage student speech and writing. We don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Under an agreement signed with the Daily on July 10, the Daily maintains an affiliation with the journalism department and other departments on campus, Tanaka said. The Daily has agreed to provide learning opportunities for the students, he added.

“We think it would be unfortunate if because of this lawsuit student speech and student writing is drowned out on the campus,” Tanaka said.

But Michael Gartner, editor of the Tribune, said the university’s regulations are unfair and unconstitutional. “You simply can’t tell one voice it can speak at a corner and another group it can’t speak at a corner,” Gartner said. “It’s called prior restraint. It’s the most grievous affront to the First Amendment.”

Gartner said the goal of the lawsuit is “fairness and equality.”

Tanaka has a different view. “We think that there is nothing wrong with the [distribution] policy under First Amendment principles.”

Under ISU’s current periodical distribution policy, there are 42 locations where affiliated periodicals can distribute and eight for non-affiliated periodicals.

There are continuing discussions between the two parties.

“You always hope to settle out of court,” Gartner added.

A trial date has not been set.