BC paper fights officials over lease

The administration at Boston College is currently butting heads with one of its three student newspapers, The Heights -- a weekly publication -- over issues surrounding the rights of a free press.

In September, the administration proposed new provisions to the terms of the newspaper's lease on the university-owned building it has occupied for decades, Heights Editor in Chief Nancy Reardon said.

The changes the administration proposed would usurp some of the newspaper's independence.

Boston College proposed the prohibition of "advertisements for family planning and abortion clinics and similar agencies" in addition to "advertisements for cigarettes and alcoholic beverages," according to a Nov. 11 letter from the paper's editorial board to BC Vice President of Student Affairs Cheryl Presley.

"The Heights cannot agree to these restrictions," the editorial board said.

"Limiting The Heights' right to accept advertising in this manner would infringe on its institutional independence and its right to freedom of the press," the letter continued.

Among several other requests, the administration also asked The Heights to establish an advisory board that would include "members of Boston College faculty and/or staff." But the editorial board wrote that the function of the advisory board was not made clear in the lease agreement.

The advisory board "would dismantle the wall of separation between The Heights and the administration," the letter added.

Boston College Director of Public Affairs Jack Dunn said the proposed changes to the lease were made "in response to multiple complaints from students, student organizations [and] faculty."

"The administration has done what it has done before at lease time -- sit down and discuss our issues of mutual concern with the newspaper and the administration," he continued.

Reardon said The Heights is "financially independent" and a "nonprofit" organization.

She said the board's protests against the new lease proposals represented "a student newspaper standing up for the principles of the free press."

And these are principles which the university has said it supports.

BC "has no intention, no desire, to edit the news or editorial content of any of its three on-campus newspapers," Dunn said. "But since they are not in fact independent or separately incorporated, Boston College... reserves the right to raise objections and complaints from the BC community with the student newspapers at lease negotiation times."

"The Heights is subsidized by Boston College," Dunn added. "Its utilities are paid for by the university."

Additionally, "it is not incorporated with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," he said.

Dunn said that "if they do not want to engage in discussions, then perhaps they should seek the independence and separate incorporation that they have long claimed but never realized."

Dunn said that past discussions regarding community objections to The Heights have "always taken place in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect, and would have this year as well, had the editor in chief not opted instead for publicity in what should have been a straightforward and private negotiation."

While both Dunn and Reardon attested to a long-standing good relationship between the newspaper and the school, Dunn claimed that recent issues have "revolved around Nancy Reardon's tenure, which has been a most difficult tenure for the paper."

Dunn cited the board's counterproposal spelled out in the Nov. 11 letter as a promise to "renege on a 30-year agreement not to run abortion ads, which for us as a Catholic institution is offensive."

However, Reardon said that the board was "not going to fight the abortion provision. What we do take issue with" are the other restrictions on advertising.

One other BC student newspaper -- The Observer -- is in the process of negotiating a similar lease with the college, but is not struggling with the same issues.

"We have an excellent cooperative relationship with the college," Editor in Chief Christopher Pizzo said. "We are not commenting on the terms of the lease."

He called The Heights' decision to discuss these issues "a very irresponsible action."

"The university is fully within its rights as a private, Catholic institution to enforce a certain degree of respect for the Catholic identity of the school from its campus publications," he added.

In contrast to Boston College, Penn works "with [The Daily Pennsylvanian] just like we do any other media outlet," University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said.

"A university is asking for trouble if they try to censor their student newspaper," she added.

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