FIRE has been helping a group of students at Hampton University in Virginia who posted anti-Bush flyers that called for a protest and a walk-out. The school's administration threatened the students with a maximum penalty of expulsion, but we learn today that five of the seven have been told their punishment will "only" be twenty hours of community service.

This is the second First Amendment story at Hampton in the last two years. Previously, a former president of the school confiscated the student paper run when her letter to the campus on health concerns in the student cafeteria were run on page three rather than the front page she had requested. This cost Hampton a $55,000 grant from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

It's not often I agree with the Nation, but this is quite clearly a repulsive act by Hampton U., and they should require that the school's administration join the seven students for twenty hours of First Amendment training