The old newspaper joke begins, "What's black and white and read all over?" But that certainly wasn't the case on April 15, 1993, when the entire press run of the Daily Pennsylvanian went missing -- stolen by a group of angry students.
The DP's supposed crime was running Gregory Pavlik's controversial columns -- one in particular questioned the validity of Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- but other collegiate papers, including The Brown Daily Herald, The Daily Californian and The Temple News, have all met similar fates.
The reasons behind the thefts were as varied as the newspapers' locations, and often, at the heart of the problem lied race, which can prove a sensitive topic for university community members.
As with the DP case in 1993, the scandal that erupted at Brown in 2001 was caused by a racial dispute -- but this one over a paid advertisement printed in the The Brown Daily Herald, which many deemed offensive.
The newspaper had published an advertisement by the conservative columnist David Horowitz, entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks -- and Racist Too."
Apparently, not everyone agreed. After publication, about 100 students unaffiliated with any specific organization said they were offended by the ad and asked the editorial board to halt its publication.
"It was a very tense situation," current Daily Herald Editor-in-Chief Patrick Moos said. "But there was no change of mind."
On March 13, 2001, the press run was stolen, replaced at every newsstand with the xeroxed signature of the "Coalition of Concerned Students."
Equally concerned, the university responded by saying that the theft was "unacceptable," but then sympathized that the ad was offensive and did not proceed with the investigations. However, the newspaper reprinted the ad without further incident.
In fact, the editors of the Daily Herald remain unconcerned about future free speech violations, doubting that a similar episode would happen today. After all, in the 2001 incident, the majority of student opinion had sided with the newspaper, decrying the theft as a suppression of free speech.
"It was such a cataclysmic event.... It made everyone come together," Moos said. "I don't think that would happen again."
But press run thefts are not limited to issues of racial dispute. Over the past years, many campus news organizations have experienced firsthand this crime.
The Daily Californian first witnessed such a theft on Nov. 5, 1996, when it published an editorial that endorsed the controversial Proposition 209 -- a statewide measure that banned affirmative action in state institutions.
A group of students not belonging to any specific organization opposed the piece and came to the newsroom, arguing vehemently against the editorial's publication. After failing to convince the editorial board to retract the column, the group threw copies of the newspaper out the newsroom's window.
But this defenestration was only a taste of what was yet to come -- soon after came the theft of the newspaper's press run, taken shortly after delivery. Undeterred, the Daily Cal reprinted the issue and redistributed on the same day.
University police officials did not prosecute the thieves but, according to the Daily Cal, the general public was stunned that someone would steal newspapers because of an editorial. The prevalent feeling on campus was that things had gone too far and that personal views on the matter could not justify such an act.
"There may be a lot of people who disagree with the editorial," current Daily Cal Editor-in-Chief Rong-Gong Lin said, adding that even at the time, everyone understood the severity of the crime.
But this wasn't the last time the Daily Cal saw its press run stolen -- and this time it became a full-fledged political scandal. On Nov. 4, 2002, Berkeley mayoral candidate Tom Bates stole 1,000 copies because the Daily Cal printed a negative profile of him.
This time, university police did consider the act a crime and prosecuted Bates, who admitted to the theft and was released with misdemeanor charges. He was elected Berkeley's mayor and still holds that positions, even though the Daily Cal requested his resignation.
Final examples of press run theft are two cases that occurred at Temple, on Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, 2002, when several thousand copies of The Temple News were stolen. Both thefts were sparked by front-page stories concerning the same female student.
The student featured in the stories was accused of calling elderly people on the phone from her workstation in one of the dormitories' mail rooms, telling them that she was from the "Make a Wish Foundation" and asking them to mail her money.
A would-be victim alerted the police, and The Temple News ran the story. However, the day the article ran, copies of the newspaper were stolen and later found in the trash.
The next week, The Temple News ran another story about the alleged scam, and another set of copies was stolen. But the editors were on the watch this time.
"We were walking around campus, keeping an eye on the boxes," Temple News Managing Editor -- then Opinion Editor -- Jeremy Smith said.
The editors did not reprint the missing copies but recovered some of the stolen ones and distributed them on the Web and to the university's journalism professors.
Eventually, charges were pressed against this female student because the surveillance cameras had taped her while she was collecting newspaper copies at the Temple's Student Center.
Despite the gravity of the episode, student reaction was minimal, and only those directly related to the newspaper discussed the event. For its part, the police conducted a brief investigation, which ended when officials turned the case to the university's disciplinary committee. The administration chose not to punish the student for the newspaper theft, as she was already under investigation for the mail room incident.
The Temple News was outspoken in its condemnation. But like their peer universities, the Temple administration exhibited a general lack of disciplinary action against the perpetrators. In fact, while all newspapers have asked for punishments to be dispensed, their universities have been idle in overt condemnation of the thefts.
But this trend may not repeat itself at Penn today.
If copies of the DP were stolen, Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said that, depending on the nature of the perpetration and the circumstances, the suspects would be referred to the Office of Student Conduct, or another such office.
But whatever the case, investigations would not be dropped.
According to Rush, "any kind of theft would be investigated as any other."
