To the Editor:
It is hard to find a place to begin when looking to document the series of missteps and mistakes made by Fairfield University’s administration in the wake of their censorship of The Mirror’s orientation issue during the summer.
The first group that deserves to come under scrutiny is the administration under Mark Reed, head of student affairs. Reed has replaced Bill Schimpf, who worked closely with numerous Mirror staffers by facilitating any problems between the newspaper and the administration before it became a public issue. As dean of students, Reed demonstrated time and again a problem with The Mirror’s depiction of student life, apparently afraid that printing the truthful nature of college life would offend potential students’ sensibilities (or, more likely, their parents’).
When I was editor in chief of the paper in 2005, Reed took issue with He Said/She Said and another staff column, wondering why we would stoop so low to print them. I explained then and will say again that The Mirror does not view such articles as serious journalism. He still does not seem to realize that there are different sections to the paper, each with a different function. (Hint: the hard news is up front and the sports start in the end) Just like CNN will devote time to gossip about Jessica Simpson or Tom Cruise, The Mirror devotes some amount of its pages to articles purely for entertainment. The moment you see He Said/She Said running on the front page of The Mirror, Mr. Reed, you have every right to destroy all the issues, if you can beat me to it.
Reed, as a newspaper subscriber, does technically have the power to remove issues of the newspaper from their racks if he deems it a necessity. But in this case, a subordinate (Deirdre Eller) apparently took the authority upon herself and ordered students to remove the issues. This shows that clearly Reed has not communicated the rules sufficiently to his staff. Judging by the quotes from Matt Dinnan, associate dean of student activities, in last week’s issue, it seems that problem is still unresolved. I’m not sure if this is ineptitude or just inexperience, but if one good thing can come from this ordeal, it’s that the administration and students learn a little about free speech and freedom of expression.
For Eller to think that she had any editorial control over the issue is absurd. When I was in charge of the orientation issue, she was cordial in providing any information such as schedules, but never did I consider what her opinion of any particular piece would be. I do not know where she got the idea she had the final authority, but it was certainly not from Bill Schimpf or any member of The Mirror’s staff.
It is hard not to also blame the students involved, starting with the FUSA president. As liaison to the student body, he should have been fiercely interested in what would have caused such a furor to remove hundreds of newspapers. The students who removed the issues should also have wondered why they were ordered to resort to such an unprecedented move in the middle of orientation.
In order to prevent something like this from ever happening again, the administration needs to make sure everyone under Reed is aware of the repercussions of violating the school’s contract with the newspaper. The students need to be more aware of the rights they have and not listen blindly to the administration. And Reed needs to stop trying to undermine The Mirror’s attempts at presenting an honest look at the student body to which he once belonged.
Sincerely,
Steven M. Andrews ’05
Former editor in chief of The Mirror
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