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The Norwich University student newspaper, which has been suspended since the summer, will be allowed to resume publishing “with ethics oversight,” VTDigger reported Tuesday.
The Vermont digital news site first broke the news last week that administrators had barred The Guidon from publishing following a spring semester in which the student-run paper had run numerous articles critical of the military university. They included a story about a former employee who had filed a Title IX lawsuit against the institution and an account of an alleged sexual assault on campus.
According to a letter from Norwich president John Broadmeadow sent to the campus community Monday, VTDigger’s reporting interrupted a “proper and rigorous, albeit often contentious” debate among administrators, faculty and students about “the degree to which the paper’s academic advisor should establish and enforce oversight of journalistic ethics before restarting publication.”
The advisor, communications professor Shane Graber, told VTDigger that the students were being unfairly punished.
“The point is, if they had a problem with my mentorship—I’m not conceding that at all—but if they did, then that’s a personnel issue,” he said. “You don’t censor a student news organization for that. If I was going into every Guidon newsroom meeting every week and trying to light the place on fire—you deal with me! You don’t punish the students.”
In his letter Monday, Broadmeadow said he was putting an end to the debate “to avoid further public rancor and unwarranted criticism against Norwich” and that The Guidon could resume publication “as soon as practical.” He also asked that “a code of ethics grounded in widely established journalism norms be drafted for my approval.”
