With the ever-popular HATE Issue coming up, I felt it would be appropriate to address some of the haters that have spoken out against the magazine, its staff, byline and mission statement.  The most recent form of hate being vandalism: dumping issues of the magazine outside the EMU as well as stealing one of the distribution boxes at 14th and Kincaid.  This has not happened to any other student ran publication on this campus, but according to the Student Press Law Center in 2009 Oregon State University’s Liberty had some of its distribution boxes removed in a similar fashion, claiming censorship as the cause:

The staff of an independent publication at Oregon State University says they are being censored by not being permitted to distribute across campus.

Will Rogers, executive editor of the Liberty, said campus officials removed the paper’s distribution bins during the winter 2009 term without warning, damaging some of them. Officials later told Rogers his staff does not have the same distribution rights as the Daily Barometer, OSU’s official campus paper.

“Basically, the school is setting up a state-sponsored form of communication that if you don’t play by their rules then you’re not allowed to distribute the message, which is censorship,” Rogers said. “They’re stifling our ability to communicate.”

The Liberty was also regarded as the campus conservative publication and Rogers commented on the fact that the other publication, the Daily Barometer had none of its distribution boxes removed.

According to e-mails in late April and early May between Rogers and Joe Majeski, a Facilities Services employee, university officials removed the bins — which involved cutting locks and chains for some — and stored them near a dumpster.

When Rogers retrieved them, he said some had been damaged. He noted the university gave Liberty editors in 2006 permission to place eight bins on campus. After one was stolen, the paper’s staff chained the rest in place.

A collection of e-mails between Rogers and university employees show the dispute is centered on Liberty not being the campus’ official paper. Several officials noted the Daily Barometer has been publishing for over 100 years. Officials also claimed they were controlling distribution to keep campus attractive for visiting parents.

An OSU spokesperson said that the boxes were removed in an effort to help with foot traffic and maintenance and yet again, none of the Barometer‘s bins or boxes were removed.  It is approximated that 150 copies of the publication were damaged along with the damages to boxes themselves.  Since then, the Liberty has had its distribution rights restored to the same rights as the Barometer.

In our case, reports have been filed with Eugene Police Department as well as the Department of Public Safety. All I can say is that if we’ve been striking nerves with people, good. Haters, keep up the hate. [Ed. note: But stop being a dick about it.] The OC does not sacrifice ideas or content for anyone. It is and always has been an alternative journal of opinion that does not curtail its content to vandalism or insults. The campus is indeed a battleground for the war of ideas; the war is raging and we are not stopping.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at 15:02 by Kayla Heffner and is filed under Campus, Civil Liberties, Crime, Eugene, Free Speech, University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.