Admissions Counselor Trashes Papers, First Amendment

Ed. Note: Intern Mike DiBiasio wrote this post. Mike just finished his junior year at Ohio Wesleyan University. This will be his second summer here at Seven Days, and we're excited to have him back. The photo shows him interviewing John McCain's daughter, Meghan.

Forgive me for quoting country music flag-waver Toby Keith, but “freedom don’t come free,” and for some one like me – a college newspaper editor – that means fighting your university admissions office when they step on your First Amendment rights.

I learned this lesson first-hand this past semester after a junior admissions counselor lifted 200 copies of my university’s newspaper, The Transcript, from their racks in the student union during the annual springtime admissions extravaganza. The ever-protective counselor considered our front-page stories on senior drinking traditions and university surveillance to be inappropriate for admitted students and their families visiting Ohio Wesleyan University, and so the papers were removed. 

As Editor-in-Chief of the 142-year-old Transcript, I could imagine that a member of the student body would express their ignorance of First Amendment rights this way, but not a university staffer. 

So The Transcript did what any newspaper would do: we wrote a story and an editorial on the incident and we drew a cartoon. The coverage left students and faculty disappointed that a member of admissions would stoop so low as to censor the newspaper. The admissions office apologized in the story and reportedly held a required office-wide discussion on the First Amendment.  

Thinking we would elicit nothing more than general campus controversy, I was surprised when a reporter at The Columbus Dispatch, interested this First Amendment violation, contacted me for a story.  And as a testament to American journalists’ allegiance to First Amendment rights, the story ended up on the AP wire, in regional publications like The Plain Dealer and on The Chronicle of Higher Education website. It was a fun 15 minutes of fame for The Transcript, another victory for the First Amendment and a great learning experience for this rookie editor.   

Move Out Madness

This is a picture of the area in front of Canterbury Hall at St. Mike's on Friday.  Friday was the last day of finals week, and the day most people picked to move out on.

Normally our Public Safety officers are rather strict when it comes to enforcing parking regulations and keeping the different parking areas (zone permits, general permits, faculty/staff areas) free of interlopers. But even they don't bother on Move Out Day. Handicapped spot violations, fire lane violations, people parked all over the lawn...it was like Mad Max out there.  Never mind all the passive-aggressive reactions of people blocked into a space by parents struggling to fit their kid's furniture into the trunk like it was Tetris...

Naked Ultimate Frisbee Team Causes Uproar in Oregon

With the hot, sunny weather we've been having, Frisbees have come out from hibernation and are once again flying around the St. Mike's campus. I haven't seen any naked people tossing Frisbees around the quad, though.

Trends are different at the University of Oregon, where the school's Ultimate Frisbee team has had its season cut short due to a series of conduct violations, the latest of which involved partial nudity. Previously the team had been busted for throwing big drinking parties and speeding.

The Seattle Times has the scoop, not to mention a brilliant quote from co-captain Dusty Becker:

"Speeding, drinking, nudity — they're not bad things," he said. "They're things a big portion of the community doesn't think are wrong."

Well, can't argue with that.

Meanwhile, opponents of the Leddy Park disc golf course have a whole new set of reasons to fear the coming influx of Frisbee players...