— STAFF EDITORIAL —
Newswire-gate
It’s been an interesting week here at the Newswire. Here are the facts:
-Last week’s edition mentioned underage drinking at Xavier University several times.
-Several (no one is totally sure how many) parents complained about the underage drinking references in the Newswire.
-Employees of Xavier Residence Life took the copies of the Newswire from distribution racks located in several dormitories and hid them behind the resident assistant desks in said dormitories.
-When said employees were asked to put the copies of the Newswire they had hidden behind the resident assistant desks back into the distribution racks, they promptly cooperated.
When we first heard that someone had taken our newspaper and hid it from the public view, we were stunned. That university employees prevented Xavier students from reading the independent student publication of Xavier University is nothing short of Orwellian.
We concede that errors in judgment were made with some of the content in last week’s Newswire. The jokes we made were reminiscent of something you would find on CollegeHumor.com, and frankly, we’re above that.
We also regret that we may have negatively impacted some parents’ impression of Xavier University, this was certainly not our intention.
However, let’s be clear about this. It is not our responsibility, as the independent student newspaper, to make Xavier “look good.” That’s why Xavier pays professionals to handle public relations.
It is also not our responsibility to create a positive environment for freshmen. That’s the job of Manresa.
It is also not our responsibility to educate students about and monitor underage drinking at this campus. That’s why the departments of Residence Life and Student Life exist.
This certainly isn’t to say we’re against any of these things, in fact, we’re all for them. However, they aren’t part of our job, which is to report what happens at Xavier University.
If any of the comments we made were construed as an endorsement of underage drinking, we apologize. We don’t endorse underage drinking (though we aren’t going to pretend like it doesn’t exist at this college.)
In our opinion, the far more serious issue at hand here is the censorship that was practiced by university officials. University officials have no place deciding what is or isn’t appropriate for students to read. This is non-negotiable. Period.
All week, we here at the Newswire have been bombarded with PR material from university officials regarding how smart and accomplished this incoming freshmen class is, yet apparently other university officials believe that the incoming freshmen are neither mature or intelligent enough to be able to disseminate humor (however tactless it may have been) from seriousness.
Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of certain university officials demonstrates their total lack of faith in the judgment of the incoming freshmen class.
What’s worse is the cowardliness of these university officials. Despite the fact that we created enough of a stink to cause several people to hide our newspaper from the public, we did not receive a single letter, phone call, or email of protest from anyone at all.
Hiding the newspaper from the public, as opposed to presenting a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument, is not only unenlightened and barbaric, it is completely unethical.
Any member of the Xavier community who took any steps to censor the student voice of Xavier University should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. These inexcusable actions both challenged our right to a free press and insulted the intelligence, maturity and judgment of Xavier students.
And that, good readers, is the unhidden, uncensored truth.
Bottoms Up
Darren LaCour
Op Editor
Let’s get something straight: I do not in any way intend to raise Lucifer from the depths of his eternal prison, nor do I wish to call forth any demonic forms from Hell.
Just in case you were confused, because the Newswire did incorrectly report that those were my desires.
In fact, there were a lot of things that were incorrectly reported in the Newswire. Like John LaFollette looking forward to being able to afford his coke habit. The guy’s makin’ crap; there’s no way he’ll be able to sate his addiction... legally, that is.
Or Pat Stevenson supplying alcohol to minors. Everybody knows Pat won’t turn 21 for another seven months.
But above all, how about the ridiculous insinuation that freshmen would drink?
How could something so absurd find its way into the Newswire?
I’ll tell you how: Muckraker Man.
This guy sneaks into our computer systems and prints false news because he wants to mislead you, the readers. We found out that he was responsible for that false report on Oprah’s appearance at Xavier.
He has also been exposed as an anonymous tipster regarding several stories which ran in an issue in April last year.
Fortunately readers, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.
Tonight, while I was sitting alone in the Publications House working feverishly on a column applauding the Admissions Office on its female recruitment this year, I caught Muckraker Man in the act.
There was a brief tussle, but I knocked him out with a swift swing of the AP Style guide and stuffed him in the paper recycling bin waiting for the police to arrive.
After he was apprehended by the authorities, I surveyed his work and corrected the damage.
Apparently, he was trying to forward some piece supporting Residence Life’s new policy punishing students who participate in drinking games.
This is senseless. First of all, how could someone have the audacity to suggest that college students consume alcohol irresponsibly?
He degraded students’ right to drink themselves into an unhealthy and illegal stupor where they could make foolish and potentially dangerous decisions that they won’t even recall.
Besides, even though the drinking age is 21, we all know that is an unfair and pointless restriction. The underage drinkers are merely protesting an unjust law in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The government says that persons under 21 can’t drink alcohol responsibly and safely, but each day college students everywhere prove them completely wrong by getting trashed.
Thankfully, I caught Muckraker Man before his terrible actions were printed, and now I’ve set you all straight.
My biggest problem with Muckraker Man’s column was his complaint that drinking becomes such a focal point of many people’s lives.
False. In fact, I catch some people who don’t talk about their drunken exploits at every moment.
This must be stopped.
Xavier University, we must unite as a campus to show that alcohol is the only thing worth talking about and living for.
So raise your glasses (or cans) to this toast.
If you don’t have a beer, I can share this dripping glass of sarcasm I’ve been sipping as I write this.
humanevents.com
Ann Coulter’s upcoming appearance at Xavier has stirred up a lot of dissent from members inside and outside the Xavier community.
A shameful decision
Dear President Graham and members of the Xavier Community:
I am writing to express my own sadness and revulsion at Xavier’s hosting Ann Coulter as a speaker on campus in September. Let me explain why.
My name is Bruce A. Jacobs. I am an author and speaker who travels the nation speaking at universities and in communities in support of honest respect and true communication across lines of race, gender, sexual orientation and other differences in experience.
My latest book, “Race Manners for the 21st Century” (2007), offers, among other things, a detailed critique of the deep damage done by “rage talk” shouters such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, and it also gives practical suggestions for how Americans of goodwill can reclaim impassioned but productive discourse.
I have spoken at New York University, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, Antioch College and dozens more institutions and organizations. I have been on NPR, C-SPAN and scores of other media outlets nationwide. The entire municipality of Toledo, Ohio, including the mayor, made it a project to read my book in addressing serious racial rifts in that city.
I tell you this only because a month ago, I offered to come and speak at Xavier in support of people boldly and constructively confronting the issues of bias, fear and misunderstanding we all carry in our lives.
My offer was refused. The Administration’s Vice Provost for Diversity informed me through a third party that she did not desire to bring me to campus.
I now hear that Ann Coulter, a celebrity ranter specializing in sensational epithets and know-nothing outbursts who offers nothing whatsoever of substance to political thought or speech, has been invited to take the stage at Xavier.
For me, the issue is not about a snubbing of me personally — I am, after all, not at Coulter’s level of fame (or infamy) — but about what it says about Xavier — that it would welcome a virtual carnival act of Coulter’s ilk while saying “No, thanks” to a message of challenging and substantive mutual inquiry. Unlike Coulter, I believe in and support the right of all ideas to be heard (as opposed to her calls, for instance, for the imprisonment of liberals). Further, the antidote to Coulter’s primal poison need not come from me.
If Xavier opts, say, for the celebrity route, there is a long line of notables who the University could host: Bill Moyers, offering arguably the nation’s most profound thinking on public discourse and the role of journalism; Amy Goodman, one of the most courageous and eloquent journalists anywhere; Rosie O’Donnell, as colorful and controversial a figure as Xavier could ask for while also representing a fierce integrity of values; actor Danny Glover, a dedicated social justice advocate whose message is as substantial as Coulter’s is trivial. And the list goes on.
But instead, Xavier will host Ann Coulter, who has indirectly referred to Senator John Edwards as a “faggot,” declared that liberals should be sent to Guantanamo and called for dropping flesh-shredding “daisy-cutter” bombs on Islamic nations and forcibly converting their citizens to Christianity.
I ask you to explain, President Graham, how this outlook is consistent with a Xavier University mission that states that “The basis of Catholic morality is the dignity of the human person. Anything that detracts from that dignity is immoral,” and that “gay and lesbian students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni are welcome members of the University community, and any prejudicial thoughts or actions directed against them have no place within our community.”
I am embarrassed for you, President Graham, and embarrassed for the University over which you preside.
From what I understand, Coulter’s invitation is at least in part a reaction to Michael Moore’s having spoken at Xavier in 2003, which angered a group of campus conservatives who decided they needed a spokesperson to “counter” Moore. This attempt to justify Coulter’s rhetoric as the equivalent of Moore’s is both absurd and unoriginal; it has become a common gambit on the right.
I had occasion to research Coulter’s public record for my latest book, and it is clear to anyone who cares to look that even on his most intemperate days, Moore has never come close to the level of guttural crudity, vile abuse and lunatic sadism that are Coulter’s hallmarks.
I know there is currently a “counter Coulter” movement in Cincinnati that is capitalizing on outrage over her appearance in order to raise money for more fair-minded causes at Xavier. I have sent them a donation, and I applaud their resourcefulness. I only regret that such dramatic action is necessary to remind a highly-regarded Jesuit university of its purported values.
What a shameful day for the Xavier Administration. And what a proud day for the students, faculty, staff and alumni who have raised their voices to demand better of their university.
Bruce A. Jacobs
Baltimore, Maryland
An obscene education
As an educator who has encouraged my students to consider Xavier in the past, I cannot express my disappointment and disgust that Xavier students have chosen to lavishly support this ill-informed messenger of hate.
Persons who spew such ignorant and divisive craziness need help, not a forum in which to do so along with a fee that comes close to what many Catholic school educators are making in their entire first year of teaching.
There are so many ways in which you could have spent this money more wisely or even frivolously that would not have been such an insult to the values of a Jesuit, Catholic, Christian university.
If you wanted entertainment, you could have hired a first-rate comedian for the same fee.
I remember the stir caused at Princeton in the 70s by the showing of a film deemed pornographic on campus.
Well, if we are honest, pornography is less obscene and offensive than the messenger you are inviting to relieve your ennui.
If your political science studies have led you to take Ms. Coulter seriously, it is high time to rethink the credibility of the education you are receiving.
You are better than the type of mean-spirited, small-minded “red necks” who find Coulter amusing or credible. At least I certainly hope so.
Roger W. Lakins
Planting seeds of hate
Allowing Ann Coulter to speak on your campus makes this Jesuit University complicit in hate speech. It is unconscionable that any university would allow her to spread her hatred across the land. Christians, cast her out.
Cheryl Lilienstein
Cancellation is in order
It has come to my attention that Xavier intends to host Ann Coulter at a speaking engagement on campus within a few weeks.
As the father of four who attended Xavier in the 1980s and 90s, I STRONGLY PROTEST Xavier providing a podium for this hate monger who spews venom every time she opens her mouth.
I don’t know who at Xavier has invited this serpent, but whoever it is, it can’t be someone who has any respect for Jesuit education, Catholic theology, common decency or American patriotism.
This event should be cancelled immediately!
Hugh Skees
Republican disappointment
I think sponsoring Ann Coulter to speak at Xavier is all that needs to be said about the “College Republicans” organization. Very disappointing. And I’m a life-long Republican...
Mike Fether
Delta, Ohio
Politician or entertainer?
Why not just wander the streets of Cincinnati and find some deranged homeless person who certainly has as much right to free speech as this “entertainer?”
Nobody with an ounce of intelligence takes her seriously, and she’s bound to mislead the ignorant.
I certainly hope student groups organize in time to drown out her blathering nonsense in the same spirit of “debate” that she presents.
I expect the university to bill her as a comedian rather than some sort of political pundit. Xavier can do better.
Ronald H. Skees
Darren LaCour
Op-Ed Editor
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Editor-in-Chief Ellie Jaqueth
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