Campus newspapers seized across country

Last week's trashing of 1,500 copies of an independent newspaper at Franklin and Marshall College was only one in a series of similar thefts that has occurred at schools across the country since the beginning of last month. In a rash of events that has alarmed national watchdog groups, college students angry with the content of campus publications have turned to trashing them -- but no one involved in the recent events has yet been disciplined. Yesterday morning, about 3,000 copies of The Driftwood were stolen from distribution points at the University of New Orleans. Last Thursday, 600 copies of the University of Rochester's Campus Times were taken from a student union. And on March 25, nearly 4,000 copies of The Technician were carried away minutes after they had been dropped off for North Carolina State University students. "I think there is a trend, it's a very dangerous trend, that's beginning to take hold on college campuses," said Robert Richards, director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment. What started this trend, according to Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington D.C., was the theft of 14,200 copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian last April. "It got so much attention because of Sheldon Hackney's nomination, [that] it planted a seed," Goodman said last night. Interestingly, all three incidents which have happened in the past week involve student council members who felt threatened by publications. An editorial written "against" a student government ticket at New Orleans sparked yesterday's incident, according to Driftwood Operations Manager David Honeman. "Basically we think that they did it because they knew that the editorial would be damaging to them," he said. The stolen papers, which accounted for about half of the press run, were found in garbage cans last night. Honeman said although there has been no response from the University administration, a local television station covered the incident, the first of its kind at New Orleans since 1966. For the Campus Times, however, newspaper theft is nothing new. The Rochester weekly had most of its run trashed on April 14, 1993--one day before the DP confiscation. A printing error early Thursday caused the recent incident, according to Campus Times Editor-in-Chief Rachel Dickler. "On Thursday, when our newspapers came out, the printer made an error with two photographs, and they reversed two pictures by mistake," said Photography Editor Allegra Boverman. The two photos were of candidates in the upcoming student government election at Rochester. "We told the two candidates involved that we would do a reprint, but the reprint our printer agreed to was only 1,500," Dickler said last night. At that point, Boverman said, "one of the people got angry." "Half an hour later, one of the campaign mangers came downstairs, and he was like, ' you've got to pull the papers,'" said Dickler. She refused to remove the issue. Five minutes later, 600 papers in the University's student union building were gone. Although the stolen papers account for only 10 percent of the entire run, Dickler said the building was an important drop-off point. "It's like Steinberg-Dietrich Hall," said Dickler, a Philadelphia native. Dickler said she faced a insensitive bureaucracy of officials in her attempt to report the event. She first called the University security office. "They refused to classify it as a theft, but took a formal complaint," she said. Then Dickler called the police department. "They are not very responsive unless you're lying on the floor bleeding," she said. And through the weekend, she heard nothing from either the security office or the police on the status of the incident. At North Carolina State University, the situation for The Technician was strikingly similar. An article entitled, "Treasurer's checks questionable," apparently angered a student politician and his supporters, said Editor-in-Chief Colin Boatwright. Although the Public Safety office will not speculate on who is responsible, Boatwright said most people suspect the treasurer. No proof has been uncovered, but Boatwright is confident that the treasurer will be convicted by the University. Administrators at North Carolina said punishment "could be as severe as suspension or expulsion," according to Boatwright.