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The Iowa Daily published a front-page article yesterday on the arrest records of the members of the University of Iowa Student Government.
The article, which was based on public records searches, reported that ten UISG members “have criminal charges other than traffic violations,” mostly citations for underage drinking or public intoxication.
The article names four of the ten offenders, providing details of the records of each:
- The SGUI vice president, who picked up a public intoxication charge last year.
- A senator who has seven infractions on his record, five of them for public intoxication.
- A senator with six infractions, including two charges for using false ID to obtain alcohol.
- A senator with two underage drinking charges and one for theft.
Not all of these charges have resulted in convictions or pleas — the article notes that at least one case is currently pending.
The article suggests that this information raises a “question for UI officials — along with current and former UISG members” as to “how much those tickets affect representatives’ credibility and ability to lead the students.”
A former medical student is claiming that he was suspended from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for describing himself as a “white, African, American.”
Paulo Serodio is of European descent, was born in Mozambique, and is a citizen of the United States, so each of the components of his self-identification is literally accurate, but he says that students and staff at the university objected to it.
Serodio claims that he was harassed and assaulted after making the comments, and his lawyer told the Associated Press that “directly” as a result of the comments he was suspended from the school. Serodio is now suing.
This story is already blowing up in the right-wing blogosphere, for obvious reasons, but as far as I can tell the AP article is the only source on it so far, and I have to say it doesn’t feel complete to me.
We don’t have the whole story on this yet, and I bet you ten bucks that the full version is going to be more interesting than the one we have now.
1 pm update: I’ve found a copy of the complaint. More soon.
The student government at the University of West Georgia is looking to cut funding to the school’s student newspaper in retaliation for an opinion piece that mocked fraternities.
The day after the West Georgian ran a column called “Join a Frat with Buck Futter, Jr.” student body president Alan Webster — a fraternity brother himself — introduced a bill that would freeze the paper’s funds on a “temporary yet immediate” basis while the university explored alternative ways to “allocat[e] institutional funds to extend interesting, informative, accurate, and responsible information in a manner that sheds a positive light on the University.”
The bill was passed by the student government and is being reviewed by university lawyers prior to implementation.
The offending column described frat members as “over-aggressive alcoholics that have no sense of responsibility,” and said that the university repeatedly lets “frats off the hook despite their incessant rule-breaking and idiotic antics.” It claims that frat members keyed the word “FAG” into the finish of a Resident Assistant’s car, and went unpunished “because University Police never actually investigate any crimes against students.”
It also suggests that UWG fraternity members regularly have sex with each other and rape passed-out female students.
Bucknell University’s administration has denied a conservative student group permission to hold an affirmative action bake sale.
Such sales, in which cupcakes and cookies are offered at full price to white male students and cheaper for women and students of color, have become a common attention-grabbing tactic for right-wing campus groups in recent years. Clashes with administrators over the sales have been common too, with sponsors claiming that they’re protected speech and universities noting that they’re — by design — a discriminatory practice.
Wikipedia has a pretty extensive article on affirmative action bake sales, including mention of a nice move by the Graduate and Professional Students of Color student organization at the University of Illinois, which responded to one such sale by holding a white privilege popcorn giveaway in which white white men were given a full bag of popcorn, while women and people of color got a mostly-empty bag.
I love student media, and I don’t think it gets anywhere near the respect it deserves. I don’t like it when people pick on the campus press. But when a student newspaper adopts the bad habits of the mainstream media, and publishes a sloppy, hostile-to-students story, it should get called on it, I think.
Yesterday’s Kent State News includes a piece on the aftermath of the local student riot that happened a couple of weeks back, a riot that some have blamed on police misconduct. The title of this story?
“Some incoming freshmen rethinking their decision to attend KSU after riots.”
But there’s a problem — the article doesn’t give any evidence that the headline’s claim is true.
The piece says the mother of incoming student Kayla Will is having second thoughts about Kent State in the wake of the riots, but that Kayla isn’t. “These riots,” the article says, “don’t impact her desire to go to Kent State.”
Another entering student, Leah Friedlander, says her parents “trust me to stay out of harm’s way.” According to the paper, “she has been planning on attending Kent State for pre-pharamacy since her junior year of high school, and the riots didn’t change her decision.”
That’s the total of the interviewing the paper did. Two students, neither of whom is rethinking anything.
And if the university itself is worried, they’re not saying so — they sent out a letter to incoming students to reassure them, one administrator says, but they’ve received only “minimal calls” about the issue.
This article is grounded in the premise that last month’s student rioters harmed the image of Kent State among likely attendees, but the article provides no support for that premise. None.
studentactivism.net 
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