Loyola University Chicago now requires that all contact with faculty members, departments and employees goes through a University Marketing and Communications team member. The Loyola Phoenix, Loyola University’s official student newspaper, published an editorial Feb. 13 that criticized their school’s media relations policy.
This policy is an affront to free speech and harmful to both Loyola and its student body. Loyola President Jo Ann Rooney — a graduate of Boston University’s School of Management and School of Law — has enacted a policy that will prove to be detrimental to her institution’s success.
According to The Phoenix, through email exchanges with the paper’s editor-in-chief and at an event, Rooney argued the new policy is necessary because the paper has made errors in its reporting that have been a liability for the university.
The editor, Henry Redman, reached out to Rooney and invited her to speak on-the-record with The Phoenix’s editorial board. The president later responded to his email, but “ignored” his request for an on-the-record meeting.
Rooney must address her stated liability concerns with more details. University presidents should not enact universal policies without being able to justify them promptly. There is a clear need for greater transparency between Loyola and the school paper.
The Phoenix, in an act of transparency, has published a webpage with all of the questions the university has left unanswered since this policy went into effect. They include questions about discrimination in the Campus Safety’s stopping and frisking, a tuition increase and air quality concerns in a university-owned building.
These questions are incredibly pressing and deserve timely answers.
By providing student reporters with cookie-cutter, boilerplate language rather than full-fledged responses, Loyola is doing a disservice to its students and faculty members that the university may claim this new policy protects. Students miss out on valuable perspectives, and faculty face limited freedom of speech.
At BU, there is no university-wide policy even resembling Loyola’s. President Robert Brown has been receptive and supportive of The Daily Free Press, despite our total independence from the university. This respect extends to the many other faculty members and professors at BU who take the time to answer our emails and phone calls each day.
Creating barriers to getting quotes disrupts the learning experience of student journalists, and the university is directly undercutting the education their journalism students receive that instructs them to report without bias and include all sides to the story. The students cannot include the perspective of the university if Loyola refuses to address their questions.
Many journalists’ first real-world experiences come from reporting at their campus newspapers, a place just like The Phoenix. A university’s reputation is established by the education it provides, and in this regard, Loyola is failing its students with a policy of unnecessary, unprovoked and unjust censorship.
