CNM’s censorship was lesson for all

I know this is soooo 2002, but that’s OK. This here is my first blog post on higher education.

There are two reasons I’m just now starting to blog on higher ed.

1. Higher ed is cool. Duh.

2. I often don’t get to tell all the things I’m told when I interview people for stories. What can be a 45-minute interview has to be condensed into 500 words, and that’s… not cool. So I’m gonna use this blog to expand on topics I think matter to people who think higher ed matters (which should be everyone). In particular, I’ll write about the University of New Mexico, which I focus most on, along with Central New Mexico Community College and other institutions of higher education in the Land of Enchantment.

I will try to keep typos/grammatical errors/Mean Girls references to a minimum. But I probably will not keep Mean Girls references to a minimum. That’s so fetch.

Not so fetch: censorship. That’s what landed Central New Mexico Community College in trouble this week. School administrators announced Tuesday they were suspending the CNM Chronicle, the school’s student-run weekly, after the paper published an entire issue about sex. The issue is informative and fairly tame, although I got uncomfortable when my editor and I got to the part about the sex toys (it was the day after Passover!).

At first, a CNM spokesman told my colleague Deborah Ziff that the reason for the suspension wasn’t solely about the sex issue, but about other past incidents that led administrators to believe there was not enough oversight of the paper. He wouldn’t elaborate on said incidents.

Word got out quickly, first on Twitter and soon on national news, including on Gawker. As a general rule, you don’t want to be on Gawker.

By 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, CNM had reversed course,which they announced during an emergency publication board meeting. The board is composed of students, faculty and staff. It was at the meeting that CNM president Kathie Winograd told students that their papers, which had been confiscated, would be returned, and the Chronicle could get back to work. Also by 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, CNM had changed their reasoning for the original suspension, this time citing concern over a high school student who was quoted in the issue.

Nonetheless, the matter is simple: a student-run publication was censored after publishing something that didn’t sit well with the administration it covers.

Student-run publications serve two critical purposes: to turn a number of students into journalists and to keep the rest of them informed and educated. (This is especially important at CNM, which doesn’t have a journalism school, and therefore has no other way of training its students in this lucrative field). (It’s not in any way a lucrative field).

That’s what the CNM Chronicle was trying to do with its sex issue, editor-in-chief Jyllian Roach said today.

“Many of the things in that issue are things that are not normally discussed,” Roach said. “We thought it was really, really important to get that information out there to students. Part of it is safety. So much of it needs to be about things like communication and understanding and good information, and that’s something that we don’t see a lot of times.”

The kerfuffle was a great lesson for Roach and her staff. And if there’s one place that should engender great lessons, it’s a college, like CNM.

“I think the biggest thing that I learned is that often we look at things like the First Amendment rights as sort of given things that no one’s going to mess with. And I think it was a very important reminder for us that we need to be really proactive…” she said.

CNM learned its own lesson.

“I believe as a college we have failed to provide the CNM Chronicle with the level of editorial resources and education that it needs and deserves. I hope that in today’s publication board meeting, the board will discuss ways the college can provide you a better educational experience through your participation with the CNM Chronicle,” Winograd said in her statement.

Roach said the publication board will discuss the possibility of more training for Chronicle staffers at its next meeting.

“We’re open to discussing all of that. We’re not interested in just telling everybody no and that’s it. We’re interested in talking about these things and getting a sense of what works best for everyone,” Roach said.

Next time on the higher ed blog: MOOCs, or massive open online courses. I love talking about MOOCs.