There are several benefits that come with being an independent paper.
The University of Tulsa’s administration demanded that a satire article written in 2021 be completely erased from the Collegian’s online archives at the end of last semester. This was done at the direct request of Provost George Justice who determined it to be ‘libelous’ toward current Dean of TU’s College of Law, Oren Griffin. The now-deleted, article was a piece written four years ago satirizing the administrative response to the “Great CLS Crisis of 2021,” in which Dean Griffin explicitly overrode the Student Bar Association’s decision and allowed for the Christian Legal Society to become chartered despite SBA’s overwhelming rejection of the charter (5 for, 21 against, 7 abstentions). This obviously triggered backlash on campus from a variety of organizations, even resulting in an official statement being released by the Little Blue House expressing disappointment with the administration’s decision to charter CLS despite its discriminatory policies.
Suffice to say, the censored article was fully a product of this controversy, satirizing key figures in it including President Brad Carson and Dean Griffin, affording them absurd and offhanded quotes regarding the incident — quotes that Dean Griffin and Provost Justice subjectively deemed libelous, therefore warranting the immediate removal of the article. Despite attempts from the Collegian to offer alternatives short of complete removal, Provost Justice did not yield. Administration had spoken and the implicit message was clear: delete the article, or we will hire someone who will.
However, it remains that they had the utmost authority to do it. The Collegian falls into a grey area. While administration allows the Collegian to act, for the most part, as an independent paper, it is not. It remains an entity wholly reliant on the university both legally and financially. All this to say that at TU’s student-run paper, administration holds sole control of publication. It is officially allowed to delete, edit, or publish anything it wishes and retains a unilateral veto against student editors. In this way, the university is able to preserve its image, pretending to sanctify journalistic integrity, by, what they may deem, generously affording students limited freedom of speech and press while simultaneously retaining the right to censor anything it desires.
Regardless, the actual legal classification of the article as ‘libelous’ or not is completely moot because freedom of speech protections have been upheld for satirical pieces depicting public figures since the 1987 Supreme Court decision Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell. Moreover, despite the Provost’s insistence that deans are private figures, and are therefore off-limits satirical targets, it would seem that any figure public and powerful enough to overturn a student vote is surely one worthy of being commented on.
Certainly, if there is anything that history teaches those at TU, it is that people hate when others meddle in their satire. A fact is further reaffirmed by the shockingly efficient mobilization and impressive overcoming of collective action problems demonstrated by the student body when deprived of the “Weekly Yak.” Beyond this, however, satire plays an incredibly important role in journalism, acting as both a space to facilitate media literacy and as a tangible reflection of a group’s thoughts, opinions, and values. Most importantly, satire acts as a tool to challenge and critique current affairs and decision makers, reflecting valuable insight about public opinion in a given context. The removed article, whether administration agrees with it or not, was an archive of real attitudes and opinions students held regarding this unprecedented event. Therefore the blatant censorship of it undermines journalistic integrity by removing it from the context of the controversy. In this instance, TU’s administration not only showed its willingness to violate journalistic principles, but also their willingness to implicate student editors in doing so as well.
Setting aside this specific and, if any can be described this way, an admittedly mild instance of censorship, the problematic precedent remains. The university can and has now decided to exert its power to censor an article written by a student, marking the end of any illusion of journalistic independence.
However, students can urge university administrators to explore another approach and make the Collegian an independent school newspaper. An independent Collegian would look and operate in essentially the same manner as it currently does with students continuing to write, coordinate, and distribute publications The fundamental difference would be that the Collegian would exist as a legal entity separate from the University of Tulsa. In this format, the Collegian would receive funding externally rather than from the university, and TU’s administration would lose its unilateral veto power over what does or does not get published. Instead, the university would receive a singular vote on a pre-established board for the paper. These boards typically include the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, along with a variety of other individuals representing their organizations’ interests on campus, and ultimately when a controversy arises, it is up to the board to vote on the best course of action. This approach also has two significant advantages for the university itself: by allowing the Collegian to become an independent newspaper, the university sheds both its financial and legal obligations and with it, its unilateral authority over publication decisions. In fact it is this exact point that has yet to play out. In order for the Collegian to become an independent newspaper, President Carson will have to legally relinquish it from the university’s control, at the same time relinquishing its exclusive right to control publications. An unlikely feat without widespread support and insistence from students and faculty alike that they desire an independent school newspaper.
While one could surely argue that the university has not been as demanding with their censorship power as they well could have been, one would also hope that students can hold their administration to a higher standard than that of restrained authoritarianism. Both President Carson and, more generally, the University of Tulsa’s administration have long enjoyed walking a fine line, enjoying the advantages of a private university (like having no legal obligation to protect students’ first amendment rights) while simultaneously reaping the public exposure benefits resulting from the perceived fulfillment of this obligation. The university gets the best of both worlds, being able to publicly claim a “mostly” independent newspaper “most” of the time, while simultaneously retaining the right to edit or downright censor any publication for any reason without any recourse for students.
By maintaining this dualistic nature, administration is also insulating itself and the university from the typical first amendment critiques of other private institutions, reaping both the advantages of censorship and the advantages of being perceived as independent. It is time for the university’s administration to finally choose a side. Let President Carson stand in front of the student body and defend his decision to either promote journalistic ethics and free speech or officially declare censorship a university sanctioned policy.
