From Ithaca College comes the news of a professor that calls a student newspaper "racist" for not giving a "tolerance" rally enough coverage:
ITHACA, NY—Another college newspaper was stolen and thrown out to protest its “racist” coverage earlier this month.
According to published reports, “hundreds” of copies of the April 21 edition of the Ithacan, the official student newspaper of Ithaca College, were stolen and thrown out that evening.
One of the thieves was later identified, reports indicate. “She said she had been upset with the paper for …what she saw as the lack of coverage of the Erase the Hate rally,” the Ithacan editors reported.
The “Erase the Hate” rally was a billed as a response to a series of “racial slurs” that were written in various places all around Ithaca College earlier in April. “These incidents were preceded by bias-related incidents against Asians, African-Americans and women in February and March,” the Cornell Daily Sun reported.
The student was not the only person on campus who attacked the paper for not giving the rally “sufficient” coverage, the Ithacan noted:
One politics professor was described as “ranting and raving,” alleging the paper was “racist” because The Ithacan did not cover the rally in the print edition and instead covered it online. The paper covered the rally online with more than 30 photos so that students could read about the event that day, rather than waiting a full week.
Ironically, prior to the newspaper theft, organizers of the “Erase the Hate” rally had reportedly billed the event as a way to “look for solutions to deal with intolerance” on the Ithaca campus.
“Newspaper theft is a crime in New York state. The loss of hundreds of copies means lost printing costs, labor costs and revenue from ads readers never saw. It also robs other students of the opportunity to be informed,” the Ithacan reported.
The same month that hundreds of newspapers were stolen on campus, a single “gay pride” flag was also stolen from a flagpole at Ithaca College.
Unlike the theft of the newspapers, the theft of the gay pride flag has generated intense local coverage, both on and off campus, with calls for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.
