Last week, former Campus copy editor Dan Bateyko submitted a strongly worded criticism of the Opinions section. He challenged us to publish it and we did, despite its scathing tone.
The concerns that Dan raises are not new to us — they are concerns that our board wrestles with on a regular basis. In spite of his use of phrases like “insipid Millsean argument,” we will address Dan’s concerns with respect.
The Campus is not the New York Times. Running Middlebury’s only newspaper comes with a specific set of responsibilities that major publications are behooved to ignore. We firmly believe that it is our responsibility to provide a space for all voices, even the voices that members of our community would rather not grant a platform. Dan correctly points out that a newspaper should not be a “glorified spam filter.” We agree. However, we do not view the opinions of students on this campus – all of which are published because they ostensibly have something to contribute to this community – as unsolicited contributions best placed directly into the trash. We reserve the right to deny publication for any reason, but we do not desire to exercise this right. This is not due to a lack of submissions; rather, it is due to a desire to represent as many people in these pages as we can.
That said, the Opinions team has decided to exercise increased editorial power over the submissions that come our way. We maintain that all submitted opinions have a place in these pages, but they do not have to be printed more or less as they come. Of course, we will not print direct violations to our code of conduct. But we also have been wary of editing beyond stylistic and grammatical changes; there is a fine line between editing and censoring student voices. We also worry that we become complicit in arguments we dislike by elevating their quality.
While we are still grappling with our editorial role, we believe that the Opinions team can and must exercise more editorial control over our section’s content. There is a middle ground between denying publication to opinions we find offensive and letting all the “drivel” through. Moving forward, we intend to work with writers to make sure their opinions are expressed in an intellectually rigorous and coherent manner. We believe that more agency over the opinions in this section will result in a better paper and higher caliber of campus discourse.
Our stance against anonymity is part of this quest for a better campus discourse. If people can’t stand behind their arguments openly, it calls the argument that they are making into question. People think harder about pieces they have to put their name on. However, there is a place for anonymity and we have willingly granted it in compelling cases. Earlier this year, we published an anonymous op-ed from a student suffering from mental illness, as well as one this very week from a student accused of sexual assault. In both of these cases, authors asked us for anonymity and we found their reasoning compelling. Anonymity is not something that we take lightly.
Dan asserts that the editorial board contradicted itself by calling for “a higher standard of speech — one that respects and acknowledges the power dynamic at play” when we published recent “unpopular” opinions. Our board holds itself to this standard and hopes the student body will do the same. However, when student contributors fail to meet this expectation, their unpopular opinions still have the right to be expressed. Our board often writes about what we wish our community would strive to become, not necessarily what it is today. We can both convey these expectations and fulfill the most important democratic promise — freedom of speech — without contradiction. As we write in our Feb. 24 editorial “A Paper for the People,” “… we understand that community standards may be shifting around what is acceptable speech. We hear those voices and we care. At the same time, we prize freedom of expression and don’t want to limit it without a very serious discussion from the student body about what exactly those standards are.”
As for concerns regarding lists and poetry, we stand by our policy to reject pieces that do not comply with standard journalistic form. The policy about lists and poetry has changed since the example he cited from 2013, when no members of the editorial board held their current positions. Dan insinuates that requiring a certain form of submission equates to a journalistic poll tax. Journalistic writing may be classist in a broad sense of the national landscape, where many people don’t have access to the education that grants their opinions legitimacy. At Middlebury, however, every student at this school is held to a certain academic standard that makes them more than capable of adhering to the form that this paper requires. While we agree that this is not the only form an opinion can take, we are not excluding any individual from having their voice heard. There are other outlets on this campus for more creative engagement.
We would also like to take this time to quickly clarify other issues that were raised. We do not strictly enforce a word limit, and our publication of longer pieces by President Patton is not an act of privileging the administration. We let plenty of our columnists and op-ed writers go over the word limit if they feel it necessary.
We thank Dan, in addition to other students who have publicly and privately voiced their criticisms of The Campus. We hear you, and we have been tirelessly working to evaluate these concerns and make changes where we feel necessary.
An Opinionated Response
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