The independent, student-run newspaper at Fairfield University, a Jesuit institution in Connecticut, faces a disciplinary hearing on charges that it violated the campus’s harassment policy by publishing a column that poked fun at female students who agree to one-night stands, the Connecticut Post reported. The university’s dean of students, Thomas C. Pellegrino, has said that the column’s publication violated the contract under which the university provides $30,000 a year to the paper, The Fairfield Mirror. The paper’s editors have apologized for the column but have asserted, in an editorial and in a published response to the dean, that they believe they did not violate their contract with the university.
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3 Responses to Student Newspaper at Fairfield U. Faces Harassment Charge Over Column
firstyearttguy - November 13, 2009 at 9:38 am
I don’t know what was in the Mirror’s contract with the university, but if the University did nothing they might be liable in a sexual harrassment lawsuit for allowing a ‘hostile environment’ for women. Their actions (for better or worse) are what I would expect under the current laws.
rsmulcahy - November 13, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Well, if we don’t know what is in the Mirror’s contract with the University then shouldn’t speculation stop there until facts are gathered? According to the Mirror, their contract only contained legal restraints on sexual harrassment between individuals not on harrassment of their audience, so check it out. The Mirror is an external organization, why would the University be liable? Their actions are not what I would expect…under what current laws are we talkng about?…of institutions who should uphold the 1st ammendment. Four students out of thousands claim “harrassment” and are taken at their claim and the presses (well, funding) stop…that’s absurd. Those four students need to not read college newspapers if they want to protect their delicate sensibilities, this story could be run every day if the-easily-offended-yet-avid-readers choose to scour the contents of university dailies across the USA. If that level of offense is going to send them running to the Dean for protection they should stay home in their parents’ basement.
saintmaur - November 13, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Time to call FIRE (sigh…)