The Mirror has always striven to provide balanced, impartial coverage as the independent student newspaper of Fairfield. Now, after four students filed harassment complaints, the entire notion of The Mirror as an independent organization is in jeopardy.
We have always thought of ourselves as an outside organization contracted by the University. We are registered with the Connecticut Secretary of State and file taxes. We take no money from student fees, unlike other student organizations. The University provides us with an office and funds in exchange for 3,000 issues a week.
If we are truly independent, as the school lists us in its handbook, we should not be held to the school’s policies. Under our funding agreement with the University, we must abide by our own Code of Ethics and Code of Procedure. There is no reason to contractually obligate us to follow our own guidelines, then try to punish us with the University’s policy.
It is not that we want to be free to do whatever we want, but instead want to use our own rules to determine what is run in the paper. Our agreement also states that the University cannot be held liable for anything The Mirror prints. If the University then holds The Mirror responsible for adhering to its policies, the University is implicitly responsible for anything The Mirror prints.
In addition, the student handbook policies only apply to internal persons. The Mirror, if independent, is an external organization and should not be bound by the harassment policy in the handbook.
If The Mirror is an internal organization bound by the policies of the handbook, it is not independent and the University should just call us Campus Currents.
The student code specifically states that harassment by students, faculty, staff or visitors will not be tolerated. But The Mirror is none of these. It is an external organization contracted by the University to provide a service.
The next time a writer tackles a controversial topic, such as abortion or same-sex marriage, someone could file a complaint and hold The Mirror responsible. We cannot be objective if we have to worry about punishment for anything we print.
The Mirror has taken unprecedented steps in order to learn and grow from this experience. We apologized. The editorial board met with the protesters to foster discussion on the topic.
We published an anonymous letter against our own policy in order to give the protesters more of a voice. We have added a supplement to our Code of Procedure to address columns such as “He Said/She Said” in addition to our willingness to add an advisory board to handle any future complaints.
The Mirror is an external organization run by students; we work hard at producing a product beneficial to the student body. But at the same time, we are here to learn as well. We have learned from this experience and will continue to learn and grow as an organization.
After the harassment complaints were filed, Dean of Students Tom Pellegrino suggested mediation to resolve the dispute. But the students refused.
Any sanctions against The Mirror as an organization, or its writers, is tantamount to censorship and inhibits our status as an independent paper.
The school can’t have it both ways. We’re either independent, or just an extension of the University with the administration controlling the news coming from The Mirror.
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“We have always thought of ourselves as an outside organization.”
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“The university provides us with an office and funds in exchange for 3,000 issues a week.”
Something incompatible about these two statements. Your paper is fun to read at times, but if you want to be “independent”, you may owe the university a little bit on this one.
You are arguing that the mirror is independent of the university and that the handbook doesn’t apply.
Has the entire mirror organization been charged with a violation or is it an individual student who is charged?
If the school provides funds for 3000 issues, doesn’t it have the right to cancel that subscription if “it” doesn’t like the product delivered, just as I have the right to cancel a subscription to the Connecticut Post?
What Dean Pellegrino fails to realize are the ramifications if he does cancel the paper’s funding. He states that since Fairfield is a private campus, there’s no inherent Constitutional right to free speech. When I was on the staff of the Iona College paper, The Ionian, we heard the same thing time after time from our VP of Student Affairs.
While he’s technically correct that he could cancel the funding (while possibly breaking an agreement the school has made with your paper), it would be unwise to do so. No self-respecting communications student will attend a college that lacks a means of unbiased discourse. Not having a student newspaper is like not having a library. The school could also put its accreditation in jeopardy (if the communications department is nationally accredited).
Dean Pellegrino should also remember that when prospective students and their parents come to campus, one of the souvenirs they often take home is a copy of the school newspaper. He could argue that the content he’s seeking to censor would reflect badly on the school, but would it be worse than not having a newspaper at all? On visitation days, all copies of The Ionian were sometimes rounded up and hidden until the students/parents left, leading to questions about whether the school offered enough activities.
I would hope he reconsiders his knee-jerk reaction and thinks about how this publicity will reflect on the school’s reputation. I suspect the only publicity he’s concerned about is the offensive language, rather than looking the bigger picture. I commend you for speaking out against an overbearing administration that thinks the word “private” insulates it from criticism and having to honor the First Amendment. This controversy will make me think twice before attending graduate school at Fairfield.
“No self-respecting communications student will attend a college that lacks a means of unbiased discourse.”
What self-respecting communications student wants to go to a school where grammatically incorrect sludge is put out on a semi regular basis though? I agree that ending the Mirror is a knee jerk reaction, but as is the publication isn’t exactly doing the school any favors.
Or maybe canceling an external program will allow the University to build up an inhouse student newspaper guided by advisors. It may also lead to a journalism program or classes.
Actually, the only thing that the Dean’s policy sounds like it’s forcing is decent writing.
It’s not “harrassment” to put out a carefully worded and thoughtout peice.
It is “harrassment” for a writer to compare a one night stand to a rape victim. Espcially when 1/4 women will be sexually assulted in their life time.
For a well written, well thought out peice with a bit of satire, I reccommand this post:
http://tigerbeatdown.com/?p=580#comments
It’s not “harrassment” to publish an opinion column. None of the people allegedly offended by the column were named in it. If they were offended by its content, there are channels available to them to complain. They could write a letter to the editor (which I guarantee the paper would publish), write directly to the column’s author asking for an apology, write to the opinion editor asking for the opportunity to pen a response column, or encourage others to boycott the newspaper. All of those responses would have been acceptable.
What they did instead is try to shut down the entire newspaper by going straight to the dean. I’m sure there are other campus-sponsored activities that offend a handful of students. Should all of them be eliminated? The purpose of a university is to promote an environment where ideas are freely expressed (even ideas we don’t agree with). The emphasis on politically correctness that has pervaded society is slowly destroying that ideal.
The problem is that the editing of your paper is terrible. If an article has grammatical mistakes in it, and is not funny when it is supposed to be, that is the editors’ fault. If you don’t take your own paper seriously, how can you expect anyone else to?
By the way, I think the term “self-respecting communications student” is an oxymoron. Isn’t that just the default major for second-tier-students at a second-tier-school?
“We take no money from student fees, unlike other student organizations. The University provides us with an office and funds in exchange for 3,000 issues a week.”
1) Just becuase you do not get an agreed upon percentage of student tuition and/or yearly programming fees like other student organiziations doesn’t mean you aren’t being funded by student fees.
2) Where do you think the university (the Dean’s office and or VP for Admin. and Student Affairs) gets their funds?! Unless someone is donating $$ speficially marked for the mirror, it is coming from the operating budget – which is made up of tuition, student fees, etc.