The Vista Fact Check: The Independent Views Claims of UCO Violating The First Amendment
The VistaOn Oct. 7, 2025, five current students and one former student filed a list of grievances through an attorney with “The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” and on Oct. 27 filed another list of grievances with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) against :
- Todd Lamb, the University President
- Elizabeth Maier, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
- Michael Breslin, Chair, Department of Mass Communications
- Erika Williams, The Faculty Advisor for The Vista
These lists claimed that these individuals infringed on these students’ First Amendment rights by ceasing to print The Vista as a form of retaliation against them for writing or supporting critical content of UCO. These students announced on October 7 through pamphlets that they would start their own paper, “The Independent View,” later in the month, which would not be affiliated with the university.
The Vista takes all claims of university corruption and retaliation against students and faculty seriously. Throughout the semester, The Vista has investigated the claims made by these students against the university and the individuals listed above, and here is what we found.
Claims of UCO Retaliating against “Pro-Print” Students:
Claim One: [Ella] “Spurlock resigned because UCO retaliated against her. After assuming the role of acting editor-in-chief, the faculty informed her that UCO would strip her of her managing editor responsibilities. UCO effectively silenced Spurlock by taking these duties away from her, and it appears to have done so in retaliation for her speech opposing the print ban. While her eventual resignation from The Vista may have been “voluntary” in the strictest sense of the word, it was clearly a response to UCO’s campaign against her.”(FIRE’s Dec 2, 2025, response to UCO).
Fact: Ella Spurlock was never voted in to be editor-in-chief by the student media advisory board for the fall of 2025; instead, all seven members of the SMA board (Erika Williams, Mark Scott, David Nelson, Chad Perry, Sherri Ward, Mark Hanebutt, and Joe Hight) voted Kenna Attaway to be the editor-in-chief of The Vista. This was due to Spurlock not having yet completed the required classes to be editor-in-chief.
Spurlock was assigned to be the managing editor for the Fall of 2025 and was told that her duties may shift due to The Vista moving fully online. Her new duties would have been double-checking all edited articles and publishing them, coming up with story ideas to send to the participation classes, and laying out a PDF version of The Vista to archive. These duties were communicated to Spurlock.
Spurlock was also made aware that she would assume the editor-in-chief position in the Spring of 2026 once she had completed her required classes to hold that position. Spurlock quit on 9/17/25 to Erika Williams and Kenna Attaway separately and with no explanation.
Claim 2: “Since the prohibition on printing took effect at the start of the Fall 2025 semester, UCO has taken additional action to punish students who spoke out in opposition of the print prohibition, including: (7) removing [Andrew] Mr. Frazier from his promised position as Sports Editor.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
Fact: The Vista was not able to find any evidence that Andrew Frazier was officially promised a position as sports editor in the fall of 2025 by the Vista hiring manager. Furthermore, Frazier was never a paid staff member of The Vista.
Claim 3: [UCO] “declining to hire prior newspaper staff, like [Jessie] Mr. Kollie and [Charlie] Mx. Shackelford, after they spoke out about in favor of retaining print publication of The Vista.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
Fact: In September, Charlie Shackelford was sent paperwork to be hired at The Vista. On Sept. 27, 2025, Shakleford messaged Erika Williams that they had found another job opportunity and thus declined the position at The Vista. Advisor Erika Williams asked Jessie Kollie to come in and interview on Sept. 18, 2025. Kollie never responded. Attaway, who was part of the hiring process, which is a typical duty for the Editor-in-Chief, was informed of these two incidents.
Claim 4: [UCO] “refusing to consider [Kyler] Mr. Lanning for a position on The Vista after he attended several public meetings about the printing budget and associated with students who were vocal about continuing to print The Vista.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025)
Fact: Lanning applied to The Vista but was not chosen to work for The Vista due to other students with more experience applying and getting hired instead. Lanning was a first-semester freshman at UCO.
Claims of the university, Todd Lamb, and Elizabeth Maier, attempting to silence The Vista and students:
The Vista did attempt to reach out for an interview with Todd Lamb and Elizabeth Maier personally regarding these claims that will be presented below. However, due to the nature of these claims being part of an ongoing legal battle, Todd Lamb and Elizabeth Maier can not legally comment on these claims. Every response we received was given by their spokesperson, Adrienne Nobles.
Claim 5: “You then insist the print ban itself was not retaliation, summarizing UCO’s decision to restrict The Vista to digital distribution as stemming from “(1) academic freedom and pedagogical reasons; (2) availability of resources; and (3) enhanced opportunities for distribution.”6 Even if all of these reasons were responsive to some reality—according to the students involved, they are not—it would not matter, as those decisions are not administrators’ to make.” (FIRE’s Dec 2, 2025 response to UCO).
Fact: According to Nobles, “The decision to transition the Vista to a digital format was based on a need to realign the department of Mass Communication budget in light of declining student enrollment, a desire to align The Vista format with faculty resources and an obligation to offer academic programs that prepare students for the future, availability of resources, and enhanced and expanded distribution in an increasingly digital world.”
The Vista also found that one of the duties of The Vista and UCentral advisors is to decide how to use the budget for their programs. Therefore, these decisions are the administrators’ to make. This budget is then approved by the dean and the provost. It has never been up to students to decide the duties of advisors or administrators. The Vista staff has never been tasked with deciding how their budget was used in the past.
Claim 6: “UCO has disingenuously tried to justify this decision by citing “budgetary” concerns. But this rationale is definitively negated by the facts. Of greatest significance, as noted above, the University refused to allow The Vista to accept offers of private donations to support print distribution without needing to rely on any funding from the University.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
Fact: When The Vista asked if any donations for a printed paper had ever been denied or even given to The Vista, Nobles responded with “no.” After digging further, The Vista was able to find that no official donation had been given to The University for The Vista to print. Therefore, the University could not deny any donations because these donations did not exist.
Claim 7: “Notwithstanding that vote, administrators informed the Board that the University would no longer provide funding to publish The Vista as a print publication and would instead publish exclusively online as a digital publication hosted on UCO’s servers.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
Fact: Ucentralmedia.com is not hosted on UCO servers. In an official statement from Nobles, she said, “No. The Vista website and production platforms are hosted on third-party platforms unaffiliated with UCO. The students employed by The Vista and their faculty adviser are the only ones with access.”
The Vista found that any domains with .edu at the end are typically directly controlled by educational institutions, while domains with .org or .com can be affiliated with educational institutions but are not directly controlled by said institutions.
When Nobles was asked if UCO, Dean Maier, and Todd Lamb recognize The Vista as an independent news network from the University, she said, “The Vista is part of UCentral, the student media network at UCO. This network includes the Vista, UCentral TV, and UCentral Radio, and was created to provide UCO students majoring in Professional Media opportunities to fulfill the requirements of the degree. The Vista does not represent UCO or speak on behalf of UCO. Rather, The Vista provides opportunities for UCO students to research, develop, and publish content independently.”
The current Vista staff has found that this statement has remained true due to no faculty, staff, or members of the UCO administration attempting to control the content that The Vista has put up this semester.
Claim 8: “unilaterally removing newspaper racks – The Vista’s property – from campus facilities.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
Fact: Yes, the racks were removed; however, Erika Williams has stated on numerous occasions to the current Vista staff that we have access to The Vista racks still, and The Vista is currently planning ways to repurpose the racks for the spring 2026 semester.
Claim 9 and 10: “Thereafter, University leaders, including Mr. Lamb, repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the nature of The Vista’s coverage of the University, including, for example, The Vista’s coverage of efforts to install Narcan vending machines on campus,3 the University’s handling of a student dying by suicide in late 2024,4 and the UCO Student Association’s failed vote of confidence in Mr. Lamb immediately prior to his official inauguration in April 2024.5 In August 2024, Mr. Lamb complained to Mr. Ramsey that the newspaper spends too much time reporting on ‘broken eggs’ – that is, negative stories – when there is a ‘perfectly good omelette.’ That statement is consistent with the view Mr. Lamb previously expressed to Mr. Ramsey in an interview that The Vista’s primary purpose should be to serve as a promotional arm for the University.” (“Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” sent to UCO on Oct. 7, 2025).
“First, we would like to set the factual record straight. In responding to attorney Leslie Briggs’s letter, you suggest there is no content animus from the university, instead accusing her of mischaracterizing President Todd Lamb’s remark that the paper focused too much on “broken eggs.”2 Yet UCO offers no alternative explanation of his comment, and conveniently ignores that the student to whom Lamb made the remark interpreted it as an effort to sway the paper’s coverage.” (FIRE’s Dec 2, 2025, response to UCO).
Fact: When The Vista directly asked Nobles what Lamb meant by this comment, she said, ” While perhaps not a verbatim quote, the exchange in question was not a directive regarding The Vista’s content. The university, including its president, has taken no action to dictate The Vista’s content.”
When Jake Ramsey was editor-in-chief during the 2024-2025 school year, a total of 14 articles that could be viewed as critical of the University were published. With 12 of them being written by Ramsey. Though The Vista understands how Lamb’s comment could be viewed as a potential attempt to “control the content of The Vista,” ultimately, we have found that there is no evidence of control from Lamb or the university last semester or this semester.
If Lamb wanted to control the content of The Vista, then Ramsey would not have been able to publish, print, and write 14 articles that criticize the University, Lamb, UCOSA, or individual students and times.
Claim 11: “And for the university to claim an academic freedom right to alter the distribution of a newspaper defies decades of precedent that make clear students, not the government, are entitled to make editorial decisions for independent student newspapers.8 Regardless of the university’s motivations, the decision to print a newspaper on paper is not up to university administrators, even if the outlet has a faculty advisor or the university disagrees with the direction students wish to take the paper.9″ (FIRE’s Dec 2, 2025 response to UCO).
Fact: Ten years ago, The Vista was funded through our student government, UCOSA. When a student’s paper is funded through an outlet like the student government, it is typically offered more protections. When UCOSA decided to stop funding The Vista 10 years ago, that could have been a First Amendment violation. However, the former advisor and staff of The Vista during this time decided not to sue and to let the university step in and fund The Vista. Furthermore, the former Editor-in-Chief, Jake Ramesy, was asked on numerous occasions in the spring 2025 semester to ask UCOSA for the money to fund the printing of the paper. He chose not to do so.
Since UCO has stated, when asked every time, that the reason to cease printed editions of The Vista was budgetary concerns and not based on dissatisfaction with past or current content, The Vista has published, and UCO has stated that they see The Vista as independent from The University, and The Vista has editorial independence on its website. The Vista was not able to find any legitimate evidence of The University, Todd Lamb, Elizabeth Maier, Michael Breslin, or Erika Williams violating Jake Ramsey, Jessie Kollie, Charlie Shackleford, Ella Spurlock, Andrew Fraizer, or Kyler Lanning’s First Amendment rights.
Conclusion
The Vista was only able to find factual evidence that disputes each of these students’ claims that they submitted to The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
In fact, The Vista was not able to find any evidence that any of these alleged actions or conversations happened in the first place. These students’ lawyer, Leslie Briggs, stated in a letter to the University on Nov. 20, that “Many of the other events referenced in my letter took place during various in-person meetings and are not necessarily reflected in written communications. We do not believe it would
be productive at this point to debate the particulars of how different people seem to have interpreted the same interactions.” (“Reporters Committee for the Freedom of Press” Nov. 20 letter to UCO).
After carefully reading through all email correspondence between Kendall Parish, the legal representative for UCO, and the two organizations that have been cited above, The Vista found that a majority of the accusations are based on feeling rather than fact.
It is unfortunate that the members of The Independent View feel that the university has violated their First Amendment rights; however, the law only deals with the facts of the situation, though feelings and opinions can influence a court’s final decision. Factually speaking, the university has not violated the First Amendment by ceasing to print The Vista and moving it fully online.