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The Wichita State University Sunflower has been told that its 2008-09 student government funding will not be disbursed until a review of the newspaper’s activities has been completed.
The funds in question are from student activity fees, which amount to approximately half the paper’s total budget. The review, however, seems to have been initiated at least in part by university administrators rather than students.
Budgets for student organizations at WSU are set by a Student Fees Committee composed of five students and two administrators. The student members are appointed by student government, but the committee is chaired by Ron Kopita, the university’s vice president for campus life and university relations. Sunflower editor-in-chief Todd Vogts says Kopita questioned Sunflower staffers about the newspaper’s operations and editorial content in mid-March, two weeks before the Student Fee Committee recommended a formal investigation of the paper.
The task force that will be reviewing the newspaper’s operations will be appointed by Kopita, not the student government, according to a memorandum that the Sunflower received from Dean of Students Cheryl Adams.
The Sunflower‘s current fiscal year ends in October. Kopita has not guaranteed that the task force’s work will be completed by then.
Update: The Sunflower task force is the subject of an article in the Wichita Eagle.
Racialicious offers a roundup of recent racist op-eds in campus newspapers, to which Feministe responds with a discussion of satire, hate speech, and the obligations of campus editors. Many more important links in both of those pieces.
Update: The comments at Feministe include a link to a 2007 Campus Progress report on the lack of racial diversity among student newspaper staffs, as well as comments from a student editor and a writer of satire pieces for a campus paper. Worth a look.
Large quantities of student newspapers have been removed from distribution points in unrelated incidents at four college campuses in the last week.
At Ball State in Indiana, more than half of the print run of an edition featuring a story about the arrest of a member of the college’s soccer team were stolen while distribution was in progress.
At Loyola Marymount in California, stacks of a paper with two controversial stories were found in a campus recycling bin.
Approximately 300 copies of the University of New Orleans <i>Driftwood</i> were found in a trash can after an argument between newspaper staffers and student government officials. The issue in question contained an article critical of two student government officers.
And approximately 2,500 copies of an edition of the Kent State student newspaper were stolen for reasons that remain unknown.
studentactivism.net 
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