Montclair State funds beleaguered student paper, promises independence next year
Mar 3rd, 2008 by Rob
Update on a previous report: The president of Montclair State University in New Jersey announced Thursday that the school’s student-run newspaper—which had been temporarily locked down by the student government in charge of funding it—will be fully funded throughout the rest of the academic year.
President Susan A. Cole also said the Montclarion would be fully separated from under the SGA’s budget umbrella by July 1.
The tiff between the paper and the SGA goes back to early January, when the student senate voted to freeze the Montclarion’s funding after its editors hired an attorney to gain access to the SGA’s closed-door meetings. Although the SGA ultimately restored the paper’s budget, it voted to strip the Montclarion of its status of a publication worthy of equal First Amendment protection as any newspaper outside the college campus.
The events prompted a nationwide discussion among bloggers and other observers, most of whom tended to question the appropriateness of the SGA’s apparent use of prior restraint to silence a dissenting viewpoint. Steve Gosset of Reality Bites Back wrote in January that the student council felt it was above the rules applicable to a public body:
“Which is why, of course, you need a newspaper keeping close tabs on their activities. I suspect the SGA’s FUBAR move has been enough of a PR disaster for the school that the administration will lean on Chicken & Co. enough to get them to capitulate. And perhaps, then, also order them to take a remedial civics lesson in the process.”
