FREE SPEECH VERSUS HATE SPEECH AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY IN FORT COLLINS

At Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, the student newspaper is called The Rocky Mountain Collegian. On Friday, September 21, 2007, the students who run this newspaper ran a large headline without text that said “Fuck Bush,” followed by this line: “This is the view of the Collegian editorial board.”

Here is the web site link:

http://media.www.collegian.com/
media/storage/paper864/news/2007/09/21/News/Taser.

First, who is the editorial board of The Rocky Mountain Collegian? We don’t know their names, where they come from, the names of their parents, or anything about them. And the media who picked up this story, radio talk-show mega-host Rush Limbaugh and so forth, have not identified these people who blasted a headline in a taxpayer-funded student newspaper that said “Fuck Bush.”

But the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, a twenty-something-year-old named J. David McSwane, was forced by an outpouring of criticism and resentment to issue a mea culpa that he wrote to “University Community and Collegian readers,” that said in part:

“This letter should serve as an explanation to readers who were offended and upset by the editorial statement. While the editorial board feels strongly with regard to first amendment issues, we have found the unintended consequences of such a bold statement to be extremely disheartening …

“As local and national media will inevitably jump on this controversy, I strongly urge the university community to try and understand that the intentions of the students on staff, including me, were not to cause harm, but rather to reinforce the importance of free speech at our great institution…

“The Collegian editorial board, a group of seven student editors charged with determining a staff editorial for each issue, voted to run the editorial statement. This vote was a split vote, but the board as a whole has agreed to stand behind this decision and to continue the Collegian tradition.”

A “split vote” among seven people? Who for and who against? Come on. Let’s have some honesty here because, yes, a lot of people were very offended, as rightly they should be.

Was it four or five or six students who decided to run this “Fuck Bush” headline, with three or two or one opposing? Any way you cut this "split vote," these students are not journalists. Those who voted to run this headline on The Collegian's editorial page are immature, unlearned, hate-speech mongers hiding behind the cloak of free speech, saying their student paper at Colorado State University at Fort Collins has existed for 116 years, but besmirching this newspaper's honorable and historic masthead with their irresponsibility.

They defiled this newspaper and all their predecessors as editors and reporters and photographers with cheap-shot hateful contumely, no logical well-explained rationale, against the elected president of the United States. Lazy, nasty, stupid kids getting their rocks off by feeding the anti-Bush frenzy among faculty and liberal weirdos they are sucking up to.

I shall not say what I would respond to them, because it would get down in the gutter with them. But it would be their headline back at them without the president's name, who is a decent man of faith and, as it turns out, a great leader with great minds around him as he makes his daily decisions.

These Colorado State University student guttersnipes better realize that there are millions of Americans who do not like their type of immature ideological cowardice, their hiding behind the First Amendment as a defense of hate speech, rudeness, defiling our president, and using a state taxpayer-funded college in Colorado as a defense for their immaturity, stupidity, ignorance, laziness, and lack of intellectual honesty and rigor.

At least the president of the university. Larry Edward Penley, issued a statement after national talk-show host Rush Limbaugh picked up the story saying, “the profane editorial does not ‘reflect the expectations we have of our student journalists.’”

Thank you, President Penley.

But Colorado State University students nailed it to the wall with their own comments in response:

Jenna Lynn Ellis, a journalism major at CSU wrote that she was “disgusted with my fellow ‘journalists.’ Saying “President Penley wrote that the profane editorial does not ‘reflect the expectations we have of our student journalists.’ I disagree.

Jenna Ellis continued: “The journalism department as a whole teaches that free speech in this form rules the day and many professors use such profanity and derogatory bashing regularly in class and encourage student journalists to use journalism and free speech as a catalyst in the same manner the editorial board did.

“While the department may espouse honorable behavior through written policies, they remain unaccountable for what is actually taught in class.

“The poor choice the Collegian editors made is not only a reflection of their immaturity as responsible journalists, but also a reflection of the poor education provided by equally immature and agenda-driven faculty in the journalism department.”

Rachelle Backer posted this on the CSU Collegian web site at 1:16 PM Mountain Standard Time on September 21, 2007:

“I can't say I'm surprised by the editorial board's comments. After all, professional journalists say the same thing everyday (just not so blatantly). It wouldn't surprise me if the New York Times or Washington Post called to offer them jobs.”

Stu Lillard posted this at 1:12 PM MST: “Um, I guess the Collegian view of hate speech has loopholes? Lames.”

Adam posted this at 1:13 PM MST: “It's kind of funny that at the bottom of this ‘editorial’ it says "This is the view of the Collegian editorial board." because that's a lie. It's the view of the board, the reporters, the editors, the entire paper, the journalism department, the staff, the faculty, the college.”

James Holt posted this at 3:17 PM MST: “An effort to highlight the importance of free speech? That comment was a mockery of free speech and a disgrace. Yes, the first amendment is a right and one to be protected.

Pete wrote at 3:34 PM MST: “Don't you feel diminished by such immature writing? Are you proud that you can say the "f-word" Wow! you must be grown-ups now.”

Steve Lansberg wrote at 4:04 PM MST: “Freedom of the press is one of the foundations of America. The Collegian's leverage of this fundamental right to broadcast an offensive sexual profanity -- by itself -- reeks of yellow journalism in its most basic form.”

Shawn Klawitter wrote at 4:08 PM MST: “I have some questions for you. You state, "The First Amendment is at the very core of what we do as a newspaper. We as journalists wish to celebrate it, utilize it and, sometimes, defend it.

“How is this defending free speech? You made a statement that granted how quite a few people feel, but you did it with a complete lack of dignity and respect to both the institution you are trying to protect and yourselves. The public expects more from its journalists than a childish comment about our president.

"’...but the board as a whole agreed to stand behind this decision and to continue the Collegian tradition.’ How is this tradition? So what you are telling us is that poor journalism skills is a tradition? If you have an opinion on Bush, write a well thought out editorial on the subject.”

Rob O wrote: “You, sir, are a moron. Free speech includes the right to criticize when someone reveals their own stupidity.

“Let me be perfectly clear here: you can say and print what you want. I understand and agree that you had every right to print that waste of space editorial.

“My point is that you are stupid to have done so. It was unprofessional. It was disgraceful. It was immature. If you have an intelligent point to make, you state it.

“You are a fool to wrap yourself in First Amendment as if that might somehow makes legitimate your poor and shoddy journalism.

“How can you in one sentence tell this man that he is protected, then, in another, tell him that he is a fool for using his rights? What kind of person does this make you? How could you possibly write what you wrote, sleep and think it's OK?

Kat wrote: “The Collegian's leverage of this fundamental right to broadcast an offensive sexual profanity -- by itself -- reeks of yellow journalism in its most basic form. The statement simply expresses a pejorative opinion without any further reasoning or justification. It is a slap in the face to individuals and organizations around the world who are actively persecuted for their ideologies.

“Using abusive obscenities to illustrate your freedoms is cheap and low-class -- but as an American, I fully support the editors' right to portray themselves and the CSU student-body as uneducated children.”

Well, for $36,000 a year, the average cost of college tuition and board, not counting all the other add-ons, it appears American parents and taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth for college education if all that’s happening on college campuses is this kind of mindless foolishness.