Hawaii Pacific University Newspaper Censorship
The most interesting thing I learned this week was about how Social Media has helped free the people of Egypt. To help the readers of this blog understand why I value the 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In the similar fashion that the US Government allows free speech, colleges and universities are supposed to be Marketplaces of Ideas to allow dissent and discussion and intellectual learning.
I will now go over the battle I had with the Hawaii Pacific University administration in attempting to work towards a more journalistic based (and uncensored) student newspaper.
(Probably be easiest to listen to YouTube video and then if you want to learn more read some of the articles below).
Above you'll learn the whole history from start to now. Below you'll see the video of my speech that kicked off last years battle.
My public speech on YouTube to the HPU Student Government after giving up on trying to change HPU's newspaper:
It started with an HPU student covering what the Student Government and I were working on. A professional journalist wrote up this piece
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2009/Nov/22/ln/ hawaii911220368.html
These two pieces got this published:
University of Hawaii made wrote an article in our fight and they published this:
HPU is private and so its legal to not allow students to write journalistic pieces but they should not. Because we are private, the administration was REALLY pissed off that we did this and especially that University of Hawaii's student paper attacked the administration because they are our biggest island competitor.
If you google “Kalamalama” it now says “KALAMALAMA: Hawai’i Pacific University’s Student Run Newspaper“ So they think if they say its ‘Student Run’ they can censor? -- They now have taken "Student" and now we have a "Hawai`i Pacific University Newspaper"
The HPU administration helped edit the newspaper. Vice President of Academic Affairs John Kearns sat on the editorial board and approved what was written.
After those articles were published in the community questioning the censorship the newspaper responded. VP Kearns emailed me before they wrote an article attacking us in our endeavor. Mr. Kearns asked me in an email if "This is me" and linked to an article that accused me of lying on a political campaign. Then they ran the article in which the HPU Newspaper advisor suggested students go to a website and read about my alleged involvement on campaign. For which many students thought that was Libel. Another student named Philip Shange wrote a article (not available online) because I believe someone made a call to the Honolulu Advertiser and had the paper pull the article from online, felt attacked in this article because the advisor said Philip lied about his reporting. This article attacking us is not available online and the advisor was later removed from being the advisor (Assuming because he wen't over the line).
Dave Bergen who graduated Fall 2009 published a response in Hawaii Reporter slamming HPU for its attack on students at his Alma Mater LINK or GOOGLE CACHE.
Since then, I have started recording the administration at public forums and demanding they uncensor students. I uploaded my last question to Mr. Kearns but someone flagged it as a Privacy Violation. I'm not sure how YouTube can agree that video taping a public meeting for students assumes that leadership taking questions is "Private."
The administration has a also told us if students host politicians, as we did with Former Congressman Charles Djou on campus, that they could not campaign. Ironically, when the Kalamalama, student journalists showed up to our forum with Mr. Djou, the first question they asked was "Why should students vote for you" -- Which I had to interupt and let them know, they were violating administrations orders to now allow Mr. Djou to 'campaign' which I strongly disagreed with. I have emails from this exchange with administration, including citations I got from theFire's website showing that clubs can have political activity's but their 'legal counsel' says otherwise.
Censorship goes against the priniciples in journalism and it shouldn't be at student newspapers. Egypt's young people are asking for their democratic rights, we want a voice in our education, otherwise our student journalism will just be public relations, for and by the university in the name of the journalism profession.
-Tim
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Tim Lussier is an award-winning champion debater for the Hawai`i Pacific University's Debate Society.
He is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Communication and is currently serving as the Assistant Debate Coach for the HPU Debate Society. He earned his BSBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from Hawai`i Pacific University
posted by Tim Lussier at 3:54 PM
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