Journalism students are supposed to be learning about their field as it exists outside of the college campus.Unless it's a journalism student at Chicago State University, where the administration has long been populated by cronies and jobbers.
The student newspaper, Tempo, took a page from professional journalism and criticized those in the corner offices, asking questions about money and where it came from and where it went. For that, the presses were stopped.
Is it censorship, or did CSU's top dogs have a right to stifle the students?
As you'd expect, a judge will have to settle the dispute. Steven Moore, a faculty advisor who was fired for not censoring, and editor-in-chief George Providence II are both suing. The university claims it did nothing wrong. No constitutional rights were violated.
In fact, Patricia Arnold just wanted to edit the stories so that the kids could have a really good newspaper that they'd be proud of. As the executive director of university relations, she'd be better at doing those edits than Steven Moore, who was specifically hired to run the newspaper. Too bad that she wasn't a little more familiar with the law before she got involved in axing Mr. Moore.
Legal experts believe that the plaintiffs in the case will win, based on state statutes that protect journalism advisers from getting fired for not suppressing the students' free speech.
Rachel Fleischmann has the thankless job of defending the geniuses of CSU, who thought they were untouchable because they had clout. Look for Ms. Fleischmann to settle the case out of court. She won't be letting Patricia Arnold do any editing of her legal briefs, that's for sure.
2 comments:
Freedom of speech? Just another conservative canard, bourgeois petty thinking.
I finally figured out why my ABNA submission crashed and burned--I took a very obvious swipe at Hollywood socialists and women of such believes (something about not shaving legs and squealing during... well, no need to go into that.) I swear, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it did not meet the litmus test. The novel was obviously written by a counter-revolutionary roadster (borrowed from the Cultural Revolution sophisticated linguo.)
ABNA is American Idol for authors.
The winners don't last because they don't have enough depth, while those who were cut, like Jennifer Hudson, end up doing far better.
Contests don't seem to do a good job of finding talent.
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