BC admin., newspapersettle censorship fight

A dispute between Boston College and one of its student newspapers over issues concerning the rights of a free press was settled on Jan. 27.

Last September, in building negotiations with The Heights -- the student newspaper -- the BC administration proposed several new provisions to be added to the lease in response to complaints from the university community.

"A lot of it revolved around sexually explicit ads," BC spokesman Jack Dunn said.

The university initially proposed a ban on advertisements for abortion, family planning, alcohol and tobacco. The administration insisted, however, that it was in no way attempting to censor the newspaper.

"Initially in fall, our discussions revolved around governance issues in response to student and faculty complaints," Dunn said. "At no point did the university suggest in any way to censor editorial or news content."

The administration also requested the establishment of an advisory board consisting of students and faculty to assist the newspaper.

"I think that the proposals of the administration were misguided," Heights Editor in Chief Ryan Heffernan said. "I think they had a concern that the newspaper was ignoring the university. ... They felt they had to create ways to serve the university community."

Initial discussions ran into difficulties as the negotiations, which Dunn said were confidential, became public knowledge.

"We had an alumni dinner, and we discussed it at that event," Heffernan said. "There were people in the audience that are involved in media, and it broke."

Heffernan took over as editor in chief from Nancy Reardon in board elections held in December. Soon afterwards, the newspaper and the administration came to an agreement.

"When they returned from Christmas break, we sat down with them and in little more than an hour, we resolved the issues," Dunn said.

In the outcome, the administration dropped most of its demands. While The Heights agreed to uphold the prohibition on abortion and family planning advertisements, it conceded little else.

"The university agreed to drop its request for an advisory board, for ban on alcohol and tobacco ads and a student organization advertisement discount rate," Dunn said.

For its part, the paper will now meet with representatives from the university community to discuss any concerns they may have.

"We agreed that we wanted to hear more from the BC community," Heffernan said. "I planned to do [that] before I became editor. I can't gauge campus opinion from inside the office."

The Heights did take one hard blow in the negotiations, however. The university has raised the monthly office rent 14-fold.

"It went from $50 to over $700," Heffernan said. "We agreed to it, we'll move on. We are an independent newspaper, we don't want to give off the aura that we're being subsidized by the university.

Both sides were satisfied with the results of the debates and convinced that they could re-establish a strong relationship.

"We reached an agreement that is respectful of our values as a Jesuit Catholic university and their role as an independent student newspaper," Dunn said.

"I think the university did well by The Heights," Heffernan said.

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