Student newspaper unjustly banned from career fair

Lauren Thiery
To You Editor, Fused

Missouri Southern State University’s school newspaper, the Chart, was banned from participating in a career fair in Joplin, Missouri on Oct. 8. This occurrence directly violates the First Amendment rights of the paper’s staff and is a prime example of why those rights should be protected and fought for.

Student enrollment director Derek Skaggs initiated the ban, claiming that the paper could not participate in the fair because of a recently published story which he felt portrayed the University in a “negative light.” However, the story the Chart published was merely about declining enrollment. Skaggs asserted that the article was “inappropriate for a recruiting event,” and therefore the paper would be banned from participating in the fair.

The career fair was an annual, on-campus event which invites prospective high school students to attain information about local colleges and universities. Editor-in-Chief of the Chart, Alexandra Nicolas, said that Rhonda Clark, the student magazine adviser, “showed up carrying the newspapers” and “told (Nicolas) not to put the papers out because the content was inappropriate.” However, neither Nicolas nor the staff could seem to figure out why it was deemed inappropriate and needed to be banned. The only explanation was that the fair’s objective is to recruit students, and not “scare them away” by exposing them to a story informing them about declining enrollment.

Despite this, Nicolas said that she didn’t think MSSU was intentionally trying to censor the Chart, and instead made a mistake. Nicolas then contacted the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) and the Missouri Press Association for assistance. The story then gained media attention after the Chart published an online editorial about the situation shortly after the incident. The situation is currently under investigation, headed by Vice President of Academic Affairs, John Messick.

Although the investigation’s purpose is to determine whether the staff’s First Amendment rights were violated, it is clear that they definitely were. Adam Goldstein, SPLC's legal advocate, said, “You can't avoid liability for censorship by showing how much speech you don't censor.” Those who are able to freely publish without censorship should be grateful for their First Amendment rights and continue to fight to uphold those of others.