Legal Commentary

Unconstitutional Prior Restraint in Wyoming?

By Eugene Volokh

From the AP:

In a rare move, a Wyoming judge has blocked two newspapers from publishing stories on an internal report about a college president?s trip to Costa Rica, saying the report was improperly taken and that releasing details could prompt the federal government to cut college grant money [under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act].

District Judge Peter Arnold on Friday ordered the Wyoming Tribune Eagle newspaper and a local biweekly paper, The Cheyenne Herald, not to disseminate information about the report for at least 10 days.

According to the Tribune Eagle, the report concerns a school-sponsored trip taken by Laramie County Community College President Darrel Hammon to Costa Rica in 2008. He served as a student chaperone on the trip....

I can?t see how this can be constitutional, especially given the Pentagon Papers case, which also involved allegedly illegally leaked documents, and which held that a preliminary injunction against the publication of such documents violated the First Amendment. Thanks to Bryan Gividen for the pointer. I have to run, and thus can?t give more detailed analysis here, but I thought I?d quickly note the case.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on May 25, 2010 (boomark / email).