LET US get this part out of the way early. Even if they are not editing the stories they are quoted in - and they are not, so far as I know - the editors at The Cavalier Daily who faced or are facing charges related to an editorial about plagiarism ("Taking action," Sept. 12) should not be reading news stories about the situation before those stories are published.
Subjects of news articles generally do not get to review those articles. Being part of The Cavalier Daily's hierarchy should not change that.
When Andrew Seidman, The Cavalier Daily's managing editor said, "We refuse to let the leader of this organization go to the kangaroo court that is the UJC, an institution whose leaders don't even know its own constitution," that was over the top.
Even if Seidman believes the University Judiciary Committee is a kangaroo court, he should have the good judgment not to say so to a reporter in the current atmosphere. If he truly refuses to let the paper's leader go before the UJC, what does Seidman have in mind? Barricading Jason Ally, the editor-in-chief, in The Cavalier Daily offices and refusing entry to UJC representatives?
When the managing board published a blank spot on the editorial page ("This is what censorship looks like," Sept. 26), that was melodramatic.
Even so, The Cavalier Daily is in the right in this plagiarism, Honor Committee, UJC brouhaha. Much of this ground has been pretty thoroughly plowed already, but the issue clearly is not settled yet.
The editorial that started things off announced that the paper's editors had initiated an honor case against someone who had plagiarized in the process of preparing articles for The Cavalier Daily. To say that violates the confidentiality of the process is quite a stretch. That seems to be a commonly held opinion of the people who have commented online, even those who challenge The Cavalier Daily's attitude and handling of the controversy. To be sure, some of those people do not understand the difference between news and opinion, but that is a topic for another time.
Since the UJC constitution says plainly that the body does not have jurisdiction over editorial and journalistic decisions of student publications, it is difficult to understand why the ill-advised charges were accepted by the committee. If a plain reading of the constitution is not enough, the 1985 discussion - and rejection - of a proposal to give UJC jurisdiction over journalism on Grounds should make it clear that the UJC has no say in what goes into The Cavalier Daily.
A new confusion developed last week when charges were dropped against four members of The Cavalier Daily's managing board. If charges have been dropped against four board members, why not five? The managing board is responsible for The Cavalier Daily's editorials, so if one member of the board is to blame, all of them are. If four are not guilty, then neither is the fifth.
Many people who have commented on this controversy claim there is no press freedom issue here. Freedom of the press may not be at the center of the thing, but it is there.
The UJC constitution says it has no jurisdiction over the journalistic operations of student organizations, but the UJC members seem to think they have jurisdiction pertaining to the journalistic operations of individual students. If that is true, then the restriction on the UJC's oversight of journalism is meaningless. Imagine that the First Amendment declared that Congress shall make no law restricting freedom of the press, but it can prosecute individual journalists for authoring criticism of the federal government. Eventually, we would be left with lots of presses, but no one to run them.
Some people - even some people on The Cavalier Daily staff - believe the UJC or some other University entity should have some kind of jurisdiction over The Cavalier Daily.
I am not convinced. The Cavalier Daily is an independent, student-run paper. It should operate by the same rules as any other independent newspaper. There are courts higher than the UJC, believe it or not. If students, administrators or anyone else has a problem with how The Cavalier Daily conducts business, those people can withdraw their support.
They can even write something expressing their displeasure and The Cavalier Daily will print it. The Cavalier Daily, like other newspapers, operates in a marketplace of ideas and a literal marketplace wherein advertisers and readers judge the paper's worth every day. That is the kind of restraint that is supposed to operate on newspapers and other news media, not government control.
But that is academic. That fact is that Ally still has an Oct. 18 date with the UJC. That does not seem to worry him. "If that's what ends up happening then it's fine with me," Ally said in an email. "I think there's plenty of evidence to prove I did nothing wrong, even if the Honor chair made the wrong decision by filing these charges and the UJC made the wrong jurisdictional decision in thinking it could hear this case."\n
Tim Thornton is the ombudsman for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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