6 U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER
News Features MARCH 1989
6 U.THENATINALCOLLGE EWSAPERNew Feaure * MRCH198
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Several privately funded con-
servative college newspapers have
been launched in the past year.
Some are at odds with administra-
tors and others on campus over
their editorial content. U. Focus
takes a look at their disputes.
Dartmouth Review
gains attention
on '60 Minutes'
By Rosamond Hong
The Dartmouth
Dartmouth College, NH
The nasty character of infight-
ing between the staff of The Dart-
mouth Review and Dartmouth
College administrators hit prime
time last semester when "60 Mi-
nutes" aired a segment titled
"Dartmouth vs. Dartmouth," de-
tailing the controversy behind the
Review's suit against the college.
Calling the Review a "thorn in
(the College's) side," Morley Safer
interviewed former Review editor
Christopher Baldwin and Dart-
mouth President James
Freedman.
The 15-minute segment pre-
sented what college spokesman
Alex Huppe termed a "fair and
objective treatment of what's
going on here at Dartmouth."
The Review is taking the college
to court "over the right to bash
anyone they like, or more accur-
ately, anyonethey don'tlike," Saf-
er said.
The segment focused on the
suspension of Review staff mem-
bers after harassing a black music
professor on campus. The Review
is suing the college because it
feels the administration has
violated its right to free speech.
Professor Jeffrey Hart was also
interviewed in the segment.
"The charge of racism against
the Dartmouth Review is a
slimeball attempt at intimidation
that is absolutely reprehensible,"
Hart said.
"These students were not
punished because of what they
wrote,"Freedmansaidinthe tele-
cast. "Freedom of speech is essen-
tial at Dartmouth. It has pro-
tected the Review for the past
eightyearsandwilcontinueto do
so."
When questioned about the Re-
view's attack on Professor Wil-
liam Cole and his method of
teaching, Baldwin answered, "We
are witnesses to higher education.
When something smells bad, you
know it stinks."
Harmeet Dhillon, current edi-
tor in chiefoftheReview, said she
feels the segment sided with the
college "to a certain extent."
The segment "revealed a lot ab-
out the Review's arrogance and
deception," Huppe said.
A Walk on the Right Side
Conservative
papers rouse
controversy
By Debbie Abrams
The Daily Pennsylvanian
U. of Pennsylvania
Journalists have long claimed the
role of watchdog over their govern-
ments - on a national level, in indi-
vidual cities and on college campuses.
But recently, role reversal has be-
come more commonplace, with adminis-
trators and student governments at
several schools closely monitoring -
and sometimes interfering with - the
operations of campus publications
whose political leanings are to the right
side of the political spectrum.
Although editors of the papers have
not proved outright censorship, they
have charged that students, faculty and
administrators attempt to hinder the
newspapers - through means ranging
from the suspension of editors to the
revocation of funding - because the
veiwpoints they espouse run counter to
the mainstream of society.
Harmeet Dhillon, editor in chief of
the controversial Dartmouth Review,
said the paper, founded in 1980 as the
"The growing conservative
force threatens the liberal
establishment. Freedom of
speech (on the liberal side)
is very strong, but on the
other is non-existent."
- HARMEET DHILLON
first conservative college paper in the
last 50 years, serves as a model for con-
servative papers across the country.
Since the paper's founding, more than
100 right-wing papers have sprung up
on college campuses.
Earlier this fall, a conservative news-
paper at Colby College in Maine created
a stir on campus when it published an
unsigned column which contained
material that many at the college found
offensive to women and homosexuals.
The school's Student Association,
which funds the paper, threatened to
withdraw support unless the Colby
Crossfire printed an apology for the
statements. The newspaper's editor-in-
chief, Gregory Lundberg refused,
saying the forced retraction would con-
stitute censorship. And the association
revoked the $700 it planned to allocate
to the paper.
Lundberg said much of what
appeared in the paper was harmless.
"One one-thousandth of the text was
what people were offended by," Lund-
berg said, claiming that most of the arti-
cles which appeared in the publication's
fall issue concentrated on the presiden-
tial election and other national issues.
He called the fund withdrawal "unbri-
dled hypocrisy."
School funding is often a key revenue
source for college papers. Many of the
papers started in recent years do not
have enough money to publish reg-
ularly.
The Dartmouth Review, the nation's
most famous - and infamous - con-
servative college publication is a
$150,000 corporation, Dhillon said. She
asserted that the only reason the pub-
lication has survived in the face of the
administration's actions is that they
rely solely on outside funds, such as
alumni donations and subscriptions.
"The reason why we continue to be
vocal is because we are independent,"
she said.
But most other conservative papers
do not have extensive outside support.
Publications like Colby's Crossfire,
Princeton's Sentinel and U. of Pennsyl-
vania's The Red and Blue are smaller
newspapers that have at one time re-
ceived or applied for student funds. But
none of the papers are currently being
financed by their universities.
"A lot of conservative papers are
going to private funding - advertising
and donations," said Joe Weinlick, edi-
tor of The Red and Blue, which was de-
nied funding earlier last semester.
"There are some pretty uptight peo-
ple here," said Colby's Lundberg. " I
think (the incident) was blown out of
proportion."
The same complaint has been lodged
against the Dartmouth College admi-
nistration - only three editors at the
Review, who were suspended last year,
have filed a lawsuit against the college.
For the past year, the Review has d-
rupted relations on the New Hampshire
campus - first with a confrontation be-
tween the paper's editors and a black
professor and most recently for printing
an editorial that has been denounced as
anti-Semitic.
Last March, three editors were sus-
pended due to a confrontation with
Dartmouth Music Professor William
Cole over an article the paper ran crib
cizing Cole's teaching abilities.
More recently the Review drew
charges of anti-Semitism from the cam-
pus community over an article which
likened Dartmouth President James
Freedman to Adolf Hitler.
"The growing conservative force
threatens the liberal establishment,"
Dhillon said."The Dartmouth Review
has never had more to write about than
it does now. Freedom of speech (on to
liberal side) is very strong, but on the
other is non-existent."
Sentinel editor David Miller also said
his paper often upsets the campus com-
munity because it runs counter to cam-
pus mainstream opinions.
"The more successful we put across
our opinions, the more angry they get,"
Miller said.
I
PA PE RS U ND ER A TTA CK
emment, not the administration, was responsiblefor
closing the spectator, oneofeight student papers. At
Going against the grain . . . Recently, the U. of lowa, more than 300 students and faculty
the Vassar Spectator was closed down by the Vassar members signed an ad in the school's daily news-
Student Association for printing the "Hypocrite of paper criticizing the conservative Campus Reviewfor
the Month" award. The paper gave the prize to encouraging attacks against homosexuals. One con-
Anthony Grate, a black Vassar student who made servative paper, Campus Report, is distributed
anti-Semitic remarks to a Jewish student at a recep- nationally to more than 300 campuses. The paper,
tion hosted by the Spectator after having earlier published by Accuracy in Academia, attempts to
complained of racism on campus. The Spectator counter other points of view, CampusReportField
reported that after the Jewish student argued that his Director Kip Karady said. "Say a professor is
ancestors had also been slaves, Grate said, "So teaching an economics course from a Marxist point
what, I hate Jews." According to Vassar College of view, then we expose that," he said. Jaret
Press Secretary Dicksie Sheraton, the student gov- Seiberg, The Eagle, American U., DC