This week at UCSD, the student government was briefly presented with a resolution threatening to defund the student newspaper until the editorial staff was provided with an advisor. At its core, this resolution was nothing short of censorship, authored by one student reacting to one opinion column that he felt was libelous, and demonstrating an absurd attempt at an abuse of power and breach of freedom of the press by the Associated Students Council.
For a little bit of background: the column in question was first and foremost an opinion piece, published under the author’s byline and photo, and clearly stating his bias from the first sentence. Aside from the simple fact that an opinion cannot legally be considered libel, the author had screenshots of the conversation that led him to call the resolution’s author a cyberbully. Whether or not those comments were cyberbullying is open to interpretation, and the author of the column explicitly mentions that his description of the events is, indeed, entirely his interpretation.
Imposing a change at The Guardian due to bruised egos over an opinion column is not the kind of power anyone on A.S. Council holds, and demonstrates an immaturity and a misunderstanding on their part of the press’ relationship to the government.
The staggering number of factual problems with this resolution begins with its most basic threat—withholding student fees from the paper— because The Guardian is an independent paper funded entirely by advertising. Secondly, securing an advisor for the paper has been an ongoing process for years, but the selection and hiring of this person should be done internally and not under duress.
Those erroneous statements aside, this resolution demonstrates a disturbing attempt to control newspaper content by a governmental body. Even if this advisor was not selected or funded by A.S. Council, per se, the fact that this resolution included a threat (we won’t fund you until you do what we ask) should be enough to set off alarms in reasonable minds.
A.S. Council has no power to impose a structural change in the running of the student newspaper. Although we are all students, and we very much operate within a bubble at UCSD, this resolution was the equivalent of any other governmental body attempting to impose controls on any other media organization. To put it simply, it’s outside of their scope of power, and rightfully so, as freedom of the press is the third delineated right we have as American citizens.
The journalistic field has its own exhaustive processes for checking and retracting stories when necessary, but the government is not party to such decisions, nor should they have the power to hand down consequences to media that publishes stories they don’t like.
This resolution was tabled in a legislative committee (at the request of its author, it should be noted) before it ever reached the council floor. But it’s unfortunate that a personal vendetta based on name-calling led to censorious legislation at all. Hopefully, moving forward, A.S. Council and The Guardian will be able to have a relationship more properly suited to their respective statuses as the campus government and the campus media.
Aleksandra Konstantinovic is a senior at UC San Diego, editor-in-chief of The Guardian and a contributing editor for Times of San Diego.
