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A resolution debated by General Student Senate last night came dangerously close to localizing the practice of censorship. Resolution#: 24S-181-09-16-03, Introduced by freshman senator Brigham McNaughton, the resolution attempted to “appeal to the administration of the University of Maine for better supervision of The Maine Campus.” The resolution, which failed, was a thinly veiled attempt by GSS to affect the content of The Maine Campus. In McNaughton’s statement of fact, the senator wrote: “The paper is doing nothing to defeat the negative stereotypes of collegiate life, nor is it promoting positive behavior…While it is The Maine Campus’ constitutional right to publish whatever opinions it sees fit, it should attempt to be balanced in its content.” Asked to comment on the resolution, McNaughton told a reporter for this paper, “The resolution had nothing to do with censorship or content, it was only about policies. It was about the fact that The Maine Campus was not being held to the same standards that the other student organizations are being held to.” This statement is misleading. While McNaughton said he had general administrative concerns in mind when he introduced the resolution, if #24S-181-09-16-03 had passed, a dangerous blow would have been struck both to The Maine Campus, and independent college presses across the country. The implications are fundamentally simple: a student newspaper ceases to be a student newspaper as soon as a faculty advisor is introduced. On several campuses in New England, the collegiate press is run, in part, with considerable input from the respective administration. The staff of The Maine Campus feels that not only does this run a chain around the bounds of content, it pulls expression and opinion to the heel of a higher power; the result, overwhelmingly, is a weaker paper. Importantly, the supporters of this resolution offered as their impetus behind signing on to the bill as an attempt at bettering the general welfare of the UMaine student body. “I am very disappointed that it ended the way it did,” Senator Matt Desmond said after the resolution was defeated. “I think having a faculty advisor would help The Maine Campus, giving them a little bit of direction.” But, by default, the resolution would have forced direction on this staff. What the supporters of this bill failed to understand was that The Maine Campus does not exist for the purpose of promoting student life or defeating a negative stereotype. A newspaper exists to report the news and provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas; if the General Student Senate, ostensibly speaking for the student body, had a problem with said forum, they might have changed it with words, instead of force. As stated in an editorial published on Sept. 22, “The Maine Campus frequently allows the illusion of monopoly, [but] this illusion is dangerous and misguided. Although the paper’s editorial board monitors the content of each section, letters to the editor are, and will continue to be the free property of the staff and students at UMaine.” Additionally of free use are the News, Style, Sports and Soapbox sections of the newspaper. Students and faculty are often encouraged to submit article ideas, opinion pieces or dissenting letters; however, the supporters of resolution #24S-181-09-16-03 never once submitted a letter to our editorial pages.
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