The entire editorial staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon student newspaper, went on strike yesterday morning. 

The background to the strike is somewhat convoluted, but it has its origins in a power struggle between the paper’s student staff and its board of directors, a body that includes students, faculty, and others. In recent weeks, the board has moved to hire a non-student “publisher” to oversee the paper’s operations, and the process of filling the position has left the staff believing that their editorial independence has been compromised.

At a board meeting on Tuesday night, the Emerald staff demanded that the board rescind a job offer made to a candidate for publisher last month, that it open up a national search to fill the position, that it bar anyone who serves as publisher from being simultaneously employed by the university, and that it establish the publisher and the paper’s editor as “equals in the organization,” rather than granting the publisher supervisory power as the board had planned.

After the meeting, board chair Jeanne Long sent editor-in-chief Ashley Chase an email declaring that the board would not “be bullied and blackmailed,” and that an acceptance of the demands “would essentially dissolve the structure of the corporation.” At six o’clock the next morning the staff published what it said was “the last edition of the Emerald we will publish until the board meets the four demands,” and declared itself on strike. 

The university’s student government, which provides a portion of the paper’s funding, has released a statement in support of the staffers’ demands, and the Emerald website reports that the board and staff will be meeting on Thursday morning in an attempt to resolve the dispute.

Update: The striking staff of the Emerald has a blog up. As they note, the newspaper’s board has published a non-student edition of the Emerald this morning, with editorial content drawn almost exclusively from the AP wire. We’ll be following this story as it develops, both here and on our twitter feed.

March 6 update: The Emerald staff has ended their strike, and is going into mediation with the board.