Censorship is a very touchy subject. Who gets to decide what is censored or not? Should anything be censored at all? I mean after all the first amendment gives us the freedom of speech right? In an article written by Moises D. Mendoza, the former editor in chief of THE HOYA, a school newspaper for Georgetown University, Mendoza responds to an episode that happened to the paper last week. Georgetown University censored THE HOYA for an advertisement that was placed in the newspaper. THE HOYA apologized for it. Mendoza was not mad about the fact that THE HOYA apologized for running the article, but that the newspaper was censored at all.
Mendoza says,
It’s not that THE HOYA should print every ad it gets. We should respect community standards of appropriateness. If the paper wants to ban certain advertisements, that’s its prerogative. What’s scary is Georgetown’s trying to dictate those standards to students. It’s fundamentally violating its pledge to support free speech. What’s more scary is that we just accept it.
In a way, Mendoza has a point. As citizens of the United States, we have the right to free speech. As a University in the United States, Georgetown supports that right. But, I think that Mendoza is wrong in thinking that Georgetown is violating its pledge to support free speech when it censors the university newspaper. The university newspaper is an extension of Georgetown University and therefore falls under Georgetown’s jurisdiction. It is Georgetown’s right to censor anything that is produced under the Georgetown University name.
This is a very touchy subject when dealing with censorship and freedom of speech. When teaching in a writing class to students, were do you draw the line between what can be allowed and what shouldn’t. Most high school’s have a student newspaper that the students run and operate. Does that mean that the students should be able to write what they want in them or should the school censor what is written? What qualifies as being censored and what doesn’t? It is a very tough call and I think that it is one that needs to be made on a case by case basis, but certainly it is the school’s responsibility to censor what is being published, especially since it is being published under their name.
“How A Gutless Student Press Lets Georgetown Censor Us”
by Moises Mendoza
