“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a guiding law behind the University’s discourse policies. The University has a goal to allow its students to “rub intellectual elbows with the world” by putting students in contact “with a varied and uncensored range of ideas,” according to the guidelines of “Speaking Out at the University of Oregon,” a brochure made available by the Office of the President.
To achieve this goal, the University offers four free print media outlets for students to express their views and ideas, whether they are conservative or liberal, libertarian or politically apathetic.
The Oregon Commentator, the Student Insurgent, The Oregon Voice and the Oregon Daily Emerald are all at least partially funded by incidental fees. Not including the institution with which they are affiliated, these media are independent of the University. They are all operated and headed by University students and all target the University student audience. Of the $191 that each student pays per term in incidental fees, 1.6 percent, or about $3 ($168,540 of all student incidental fees) goes toward funding these four media outlets.
Ian Spencer, editor in chief of the Oregon Commentator, an opinion journal published about once per month, said the Commentator is mainly a libertarian voice on campus.
“We’re conservative on economic issues with liberal leanings on social issues, although not as liberal as most people on campus,” Spencer said.
Spencer referred to the Commentator as an alternative to the Oregon Daily Emerald’s and the Insurgent’s commentary pages and said the publication’s staff is made up of student volunteers who consider themselves a check on ASUO power.
“We antagonize when people need antagonizing,” Spencer said.
For this opinion journal, students do not need to be journalism majors or staunch libertarians.
“We’re looking for people interested in politics, the magazine industry and who agree with our mission statement,” which stands behind the clause that “a political philosophy of conservatism, free thought and individual liberty is an intelligent way of looking at the world – contrary to what they might hear in classrooms and on campus.”
The Student Insurgent represents the voice of the political left. It is a student-operated media outlet and is available to anyone who has something thoughtfully progressive to say.
The Insurgent mission statement says that The Insurgent is a newspaper that represents the Eugene-Springfield area and Oregon community.
“We are unaffiliated with any partisan organization. We seek to provide a forum for those working towards a society free from oppression based on class, gender, sexual orientation, race, species, and free from the threat of ecological collapse, yo,” the statement reads.
The Insurgent staff encourages readers and supporters to submit everything from news and feature articles to short fiction and poetry, from criticism and theory to cartoons and photography.
The Voice is published seven times per year, or about twice per term, but on a rather sporadic schedule. It is primarily an entertainment magazine featuring music, shows primarily at WOW Hall, art and photography.
“The staff is pretty diverse,” said Editor in Chief Scott Carver. “And the cool thing about The Voice is that all you have to do is come to the meetings, have resolve to come up with a story and finish it,” Carver added.
The Voice, like the Commentator, does not pay its writers or photographers, but the opportunity to contribute to a news medium and have something in print is always beneficial for the future. Students are also in charge of designing the cover.
“Every issue is done by a different person,” Carver said.
The Emerald is the only incidental fee-funded program under contract with the ASUO, meaning that its budget is dependent on providing the student body with a service in exchange. It is the oldest medium on campus and has been printed since 1900. Published every weekday throughout the regular school year, the Emerald is delivers 8,500 to 10,000 copies per day to more than 100 locations in Eugene.
All of the incidental fee-funded media outlets are free of charge and available at news stands throughout the campus.

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