The Emerald has once again proven that their meek intellectual capacities are rivaled only by their moral weakness. Not only has the editorial board come down on the wrong side of the growing Commentator funding controversy, but it has also sold out its journalistic integrity.
The Emerald, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the Oregon Commentator should change its mission statement for the sake of not making waves. The only problem is every single argument the newspaper made in its editorial was wrong in assumption and conclusion.
The worst argument is misunderstanding the need for viewpoint neutrality. It is the process by which student groups are funded that must be viewpoint neutral according to federal law, not a publication funded by students. The editorial board should understand simple but important legal issues before basing entire editorials on faulty knowledge.
The outcome of the recent Southworth Supreme Court decision is not that student groups cannot have opinions. After all, from where would the much ballyhooed notion of diversity originate if there were no dissenting voices? The shortsightedness of believing every group should remove from their missions their inherent philosophies — in the Commentator’s case, a political philosophy — would have a crippling effect on the campus “war of ideas.”
A critical point in this concern is that a publication cannot consider itself to be faithful to its mission if it changes its mission statement to supplicate a governing body comprised of those who clearly aren’t capable of fulfilling their duties.
And to the dismay of the editorial board, the Commentator will continue to fight to keep its mission statement intact, as it has every legal right to do. It has never been the position of this magazine, or that of any respected publication, to fold just because a governmental organization has run afoul of the law or a weak daily paper has urged acquiescence. So while the illusory ivory tower of University publications may feel it proper to prescribe aristocratically gentile notions of keeping the peace, those who have firm beliefs must fight for them.
There is also a great deal of hypocrisy in the editorial. The Emerald has been extremely critical of the Programs Finance Committee in the past, especially last year when the newspaper was hit significantly in the student fees it received after a PFC decision.
At one time, I had the good fortune to work at the Emerald on its editorial board. I saw then that only the most careful examination of issues and strongest adherence to critical journalistic values makes for respectable opinions. The editorial failed on both those counts, and it is unsurprising that the opinion is that of arrogant, petulant children.