Newspapers, whether on campus or not, do not 1) act as a platform for all voices and opinions, nor do they 2) exist in a vacuum.

1–Editors edit. That’s what they do. A good editor will look at the work they have compiled for publication, and then choose what to publish based on what they think contributes to a given issue of their publication, what they think is an important addition to a given dialogue…there are a long list of reasons of how an editor’s work should be formed. Publishing a piece simply because “free speech exists,” is not how journalism works. People obviously have the right to express their opinions, but they aren’t guaranteed that right by EVERY publication. Editors have the right to choose what they want to publish, to choose what work reflects the kind of publication they want to produce.

Which brings us to point 2–a campus newspaper has a particular role in the community. It is a publication that is meant to inform students, to create dialogue about various relevant issues, and probably also to entertain. But it also operates within a system that has established codes of conduct—one that presumably focuses on the safety and respect of all students. As Carmen rightly points out, this piece doesn’t follow that code. But aside from that, if the editors of the Eagle looked at the piece in question and thought: “this is really valuable. It really adds to the conversation about sexual assault on this campus, it’s an important minority position that deserves to be heard, and is put forth in a thoughtful, mature way” then I would call them severely misguided but say—OK, publish the piece and face the consequences. I don’t think that’s what happened though. I think the staff of the Eagle thought it would be “provocative” and isn’t that neat and just published it without thinking about their role in the campus community. And they pretty much admit as much in their apology:

“However, we should have demanded that Knepper’s column be written in a tone befitting such a serious issue. With a topic as controversial and emotionally charged as date rape, we should have ensured that the column was written in a manner that would have engendered constructive conversation. Instead, it inflamed an already sensitive issue and emotionally harmed many.

We have heard back from editors of newspapers, past editors of college publications and many have said similar things: it should have been more thoroughly edited. It should have been improved. This is true, and we regret confusing better editing for censorship. We apologize for our mistake and will do our best to ensure that it will never happen again.

The basic problem with what we published, and the impetus for our reforms, is that we violated the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. There is a provision in there that says simply, “Minimize harm.” By publishing this column we caused undue and unnecessary harm by allowing more bombast than reason, more insults than debate.”

Obviously Matt and Chris don’t have any other claims to back up their argument other than to dig up “dirt” that has nothing to do with the initial incident.

Also, you do not know me or know anything of my life outside of my staff bio on this website. All you should know, then, is how hard I work for what I love. If you want to throw out words and attacks related to privilege and the suburbs, you should probably get to know me before you make a fool of yourself again.