Not sure what to make of this latest headline-grabbing, national glare focusing, turn in the ever lively Wesleyan student scene. It would appear that in the wake of a controversial op-ed piece that appeared in the student-run newspaper about a month ago, the student assembly has voted to all but end paper and ink copies of the paper, beginning next Fall. An online version of the 147 year old publication would continue. While it has been framed as an overhaul of the campus’ carbon footprint and redistribution of the savings, the decision’s proximity to a spate of angry blogging and trashing of newspaper receptacles makes it appear suspicious. Of course, it hasn’t helped that The Argus itself has largely been silent on the issue these last few weeks. That is, until now:
http://wesleyanargus.com/2015/10/19/wsa-passes-resolution-overhauling-campus-publications/
Here is another article on the same issue.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/25/wesleyan-the-school-for-intolerant-dictators.html
As Excerpt:
Students at a prestigious college wage war on dissent in the name of diversity and the environment.
Censorious students at Wesleyan University pulled off a major coup last week—they convinced everyone that defunding the campus paper over its insufficiently glowing coverage of Black Lives Matter was actually good for diversity and even the environment.
In reality, those causes have nothing to do with the student government’s decision to cut the paper’s print budget in half. No, Wesleyan’s student activists just want to punish people for disagreeing with them, and their actions gravely threaten freedom of the press at Wesleyan.
It all started in the middle of September, when The Argus—Wesleyan’s main, twice-weekly student-run publication—printed a white conservative veteran’s op-ed about police brutality. As I wrote in a previous column, the author’s beef wasn’t really with Black Lives Matter, but rather anti-cop violence that he associated—wrongly, in my view—with more extreme elements of the police-brutality awareness movement.
This was a very insightful editorial written by Jane Eisner, Editor-in-chief of The Forward (fka The Jewish Daily Forward.) Ms. Eisner has the interesting perspective of not only being a Wesleyan alumna, but, also the first woman editor of The Argus when she was an undergraduate:
http://forward.com/opinion/editorial/323588/race-israel-and-free-speech-on-campus/