VALLEY COLLEGE : War Views Cost Student Air Time

A Valley College student has been denied enrollment in a spring semester broadcasting class after expressing anti-war sentiments on the campus radio station the day after the war broke out in the Persian Gulf.

Lisa Martinez, a broadcasting major who has done a radio show, “The Bohemian Market,” for the last four semesters, has not been on the air since her anti-war remarks aired.

“The day after the war broke out I went on the air and asked the listeners to bear with me,” said Martinez, who claims her right to free speech was denied. “I said I was saddened by the news. I was raised Catholic and don’t believe in violence against humanity. I’m anti-war. Also, I have two cousins in the Gulf, so naturally I was upset.”

Martinez said she believes her comments fit in with the theme of her program, which featured 1960s-style folk songs and reggae music. She said she made it clear that the views she was expressing were her own and not those of KVCM.

“She gave the option of people calling in their points of view,” said a student colleague, who asked not to be identified, after hearing a tape of the broadcast. No one decided to call, but she gave the opportunity. . . . It’s censorship.”

But Raymond Wilson, professor of broadcasting and operator of KVCM, said censorship is not the issue. Martinez chose to use the station “as a personal means to express her personal views on a controversial issue,” he said.

“Our problem was, only one side was presented, the anti-war side,” Wilson said. “There was an obligation to actively seek out opposing views.”

He said that giving listeners a chance to call in was not sufficient.

Martinez said she didn’t know there was a problem with her broadcast until two days later when she went to the station to have a slip signed to add the class again for the spring semester. Wilson refused to allow her in the course, an independent study class that allows students air time.

“He told me KVCM wasn’t a college radio station. It was his instructional lab and he runs it the way he wants to,” Martinez said.

Wilson said Martinez has not been censored, banned or suspended. But, he said, he will not allow her air time now. “She needs to come in and find out what she can do to relearn her obligation as a broadcaster before she can go back on the air,” he said.

He conceded that this was not the first time a student broadcaster had offered an opinion on the air, but said he had to take action because the incident was brought to his attention by a third party.

Catherine Deaton, a spokeswoman for the Federal Communications Commission in Los Angeles, said that under FCC rules Wilson has a legal right not to allow Martinez back on the air. But in her opinion, she said, Martinez’s offer for people to call in was sufficient. “That’s providing equal time.”

“In war there are casualties, and free speech has become one of the casualties,” Martinez said.