A Boston College spokesman and an editor of The Observer, the school’s conservative student newspaper, lambasted editors of The Heights Monday for publicizing ongoing negotiations with BC administrators to renew the paper’s lease of on-campus office space.
The discussions have caused a heated debate over administrator-proposed lease changes that would restrict Heights content and operations.
BC spokesman Jack Dunn, in a phone interview Monday, accused Heights Editor-in-Chief Nancy Reardon, a BC senior, of ‘going to the press and claiming victimization and shrouding the issue in a First Amendment fight that has no basis in truth.’
The Heights Editorial Board became embroiled in negotiations with the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs in September, when administrators met with Reardon to discuss changes to the lease, which is set to expire at the end of December. The new lease would require The Heights, which has been independent since 1971, to ban advertisements on alcohol, cigarettes and birth control; install a faculty advisor and faculty oversight board; slash advertising rates for the college, its departments and student organizations by half; appoint an ombudsman; and establish a code of ethics.
After what Reardon called two ‘dead end’ meetings with administrators, The Heights hired an attorney and responded with a letter outlining the paper’s concerns with the changes. Dunn said the school received the letter Nov. 20 and will not respond until it has had time to review the paper’s counterproposals.
The proposed lease changes were first reported by several publications during the school’s Thanksgiving break, but Reardon denied in a phone interview Sunday that Heights editors contacted local media. She said it was likely leaked to the press after the negotiations were discussed at a Heights alumni dinner two weekends ago.
But Observer Editor Christopher Pizzo, a BC junior, said The Heights is ‘really shooting themselves in the foot’ by publicly discussing negotiations between two businesses.
‘I think it’s really poor business practice and really irresponsible to go to the outside and make a big story about something just because you want some press, and I think that’s what The Heights is doing,’ Pizzo said in a phone interview Monday. ‘I think The Heights is wrong in discussing this outside of school, and I think it’s a mark against their character that they would do this and I think it’s immature.’
Pizzo said The Observer, which began publishing last spring after a seven-year hiatus, is in the midst of similar negotiations with the college, but declined to comment on them.
‘Frankly, it’s not anybody’s business until it’s done, because we might have some issues and we might not, and there are not issues for the outside media to know anything about,’ Pizzo said.
Dunn said administrators proposed the changes to the lease after receiving a barrage of complaints from students, faculty, student groups and alumni questioning reporting practices and advertising policies of The Heights, particularly the paper’s advertising rates for campus groups.
Reardon said the proposed rate cuts could have a significant impact on the paper. Slashing ad rates by 50 percent for campus groups would result in a 13 percent revenue loss per semester, according to Reardon, who said The Heights already offers those groups reduced rates $8.50 per column inch compared to $11.75 for regular advertisers.
But Dunn disputed Reardon’s figures.
‘That is simply not true, and student organizations would be happy to talk to you about it,’ he said.
Dunn said administrators feel The Heights should offer the cut rate because the paper receives discounts from the college it pays below market value for its office and receives free utilities and information technology support.
Reardon also said restrictions from the administration on the types of advertisements run in the paper is ‘unprecedented.’ The school voluntarily agreed in 1978 to ban ads for abortion procedures, but Reardon said the changes would broaden those restrictions too much.
The proposed changes are based ‘on an agreement that has existed for 30 years … that The Heights would be respectful of Boston College’s values and traditions as a Catholic university and not run abortion or reproductive ads,’ Dunn said. Reardon is attempting to ‘reneg’ on that agreement, which he called ‘unacceptable to us as an institution.’
Mark Goodman, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, a student press advocacy organization, said the college’s argument in defense of Catholic traditions at the school is the most troubling aspect of the controversy.
‘The thing that I find most troubling is the suggestion that, because this is a Catholic university there is less justification for a free student press,’ Goodman said. ‘I think that’s insulting to Catholics and insulting to students at Boston College.’
The question of whether to allow student editors or administrators to decide which ads are appropriate to run should be an easy one in the world of higher education, Goodman said. Administrators are essentially saying ‘we have so little confidence in values we’re instilling in our students that we cannot allow them to make their own decisions, but rather we have to force decisions on them,’ Goodman added.
Having a campus newspaper independent of the college administration is ‘the only way one can practice real journalism,’ Goodman said. ‘Otherwise it’s propaganda,’ he said.
‘What this suggests is that the university is going to take action against any student who expresses unpopular viewpoints when they get complaints from other students, faculty, staff or other student groups,’ Goodman said. ‘It suggests that the college has absolutely no commitment to the idea of tolerance for those whose views may disagree with them, which is counter to the very fundamental notion of what free expression … on a college campus or university is all about.’
Boston University Department of Journalism Chairman Robert Zelnick said the changes BC administrators are proposing are ‘not consistent with an appreciation of the First Amendment.’ Zelnick said when BU administrators had problems with reporting at The Daily Free Press in years past, they asked journalism professors to schedule optional training sessions for reporters and editors, which he said is a much better approach than trying to impose restrictions.
‘It strikes me as an administration trying to control the content of what appears in a student newspaper and I don’t think the administration of any college has any business doing that,’ Zelnick said.
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