Yale Censors Student Paper Over Bush Daughter Flap

declan at well.com declan at well.com
Fri Apr 20 10:21:42 PDT 2001


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http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/20/1711257
                                      
   Yale Censors Student Paper Over Bush Flap
   by cicero on Friday April 20, @12:06PM
   
   If you didn't know any better, you might think that Yale University
   cared about free expression for its students and campus newspapers.
   
   Just look at its breathtakingly sincere official policy on how
   important free speech is to the health and diversity of the campus
   community:
   
      http://www.yale.edu/ycpo/undregs/pages/II.html
      ...a free interchange of ideas is necessary... the university must do
      everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of
      intellectual freedom... we commit ourselves to the idea that the
      results of free expression are to the general benefit in the long run,
      however unpleasant they may appear at the time... Because few other
      institutions in our society have the same central function, few assign
      such high priority to freedom of expression...
   
   What a sham! As soon as a student newspaper published something that
   controversial about one of President Bush's daughters, Dean of Student
   Affairs Betty Trachtenberg called the editors into her office and gave
   them a severe dressing-down about how some kinds of speech is less
   worthy than others.
   
   The article in question had appeared in Rumpus, and quoted friends of
   Yale student Barbara Bush saying that the Secret Service wasn't doing
   a particularly splendid job of protecting the president's daughter.
   
   "On April 12, nearly a week after the issue had appeared in dining
   halls and newsstands around campus, Trachtenberg called Rumpus Editor
   in Chief Jared Leboff '03, Managing Editor Matt Johnson '03 and the
   article's author, Nathaniel Pincus-Roth '04, into her office.
   Following that meeting, Rumpus removed the current issue from the
   tabloid's Web site," the Yale Daily News reported on Friday.
   
   The Rumpus website, www.yale.edu/rumpus, now says: "Issue is Currently
   Unavailable."
   
   We know that Secret Service agents have an unfortunate habit of
   intimidating everyone from 58-year old women upset over anti-gay
   politicos to people who photograph agents picking their noses to
   gaming companies, so it's not a stretch to say they didn't like how
   they were portrayed in the Rumpus piece and complained to
   Trachtenberg.
   
   The truth, though, is that censoring the article from the paper's
   website won't accomplish much. It had been published a week prior, so
   anyone on campus who wanted to read it probably did. A better -- and
   far more distressing -- explanation is that Trachtenberg and Yale
   wanted to curry favor with the newly-inaugurated president and his
   administration.
   
   No word yet on when Yale will rewrite its "free speech" policy to
   bring it into line with reality.
   
   (PS: Yale has a habit of blocking non-university visitors from reading
   its policies, so its free speech policy will be mirrored here:
   http://www.cluebot.com/docs/yale.speech.042001.html)

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http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=15559

Published Friday, April 20, 2001
Rumpus scolded for Bush story
Yale tells tabloid to yank Secret Service story from its Web site

BY CHARLOTTE DEWAR
YDN Staff Reporter

Rumpus is no stranger to controversy, but a recent article the campus
tabloid ran on the first daughter is giving it national exposure and
trouble with the Yale administration.

A story that ran in Rumpus' April edition about alleged mishaps in the
Secret Service's protection of Barbara Bush '04, the daughter of President
George W. Bush '68, landed the tabloid's editors in hot water with Dean of
Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg, who charged Rumpus staffers with
exploiting Bush's presence on campus. At least two national publications,
The Washington Post and tabloid The Star, have also taken an interest in
Rumpus' report on Barbara Bush's security detail.

The cover of Rumpus' April edition screamed "O Daughter, Where Art Thou,"
and included a story on Barbara Bush's Secret Service attache at Yale. On
April 12, nearly a week after the issue had appeared in dining halls and
newsstands around campus, Trachtenberg called Rumpus Editor in Chief Jared
Leboff '03, Managing Editor Matt Johnson '03 and the article's author,
Nathaniel Pincus-Roth '04, into her office. Following that meeting, Rumpus
removed the current issue from the tabloid's Web site.

[...]

The original Rumpus story claimed that on at least two occasions, the
Secret Service officers assigned to Bush have inadvertently lost contact
with her. Sometime last month, Rumpus reported, Bush and friends were
driving to New York City when the agents following them got stuck at a toll
booth for lack of the "E-ZPass," which electronically deducts tolls as cars
drive through.

[...]

Trachtenberg was critical of the story's accuracy and appropriateness, and
called it "the most irresponsible kind of press that could possibly happen."

[...]

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