As many students are aware, a new and mysterious publication started appearing on campus last semester. The Squirrel, a comedy newsletter, shows up occasionally on tables in Lowry, placed there by an unknown person or group. It’s harmless, and usually causes little more than a few laughs and some mild confusion. But some students have reported seeing The Squirrel being confiscated by administrators and staff, as if it were somehow dangerous.
True, The Squirrel has included some vaguely rude commentary on various aspects of campus life and how things are run here. But who cares? It’s satire, and I would hope administrators at this school think the way they run campus can hold up against a few jokes.
You might think it’s not a big deal if a satirical newsletter is snapped up before students get to read it. People are missing out on jokes, yes, but they aren’t being denied access to really important information. It’s also clear that the College has the right to throw away copies of The Squirrel if it chooses to do so — this campus is privately owned, and as such administrators are free to determine what may and may not be distributed here. This isn’t a free speech issue in the Constitutional sense.
But do we, as students and as members of this community, really think that censoring a joke is the best use of administrators’ time?
What’s more, the censorship of The Squirrel sets a precedent for future attempts to spread information around campus. If a group of students comes together to criticize a campus policy and wishes to spread their message via papers left on the tables in Lowry, would that also be quietly removed by the powers that be?
It’s true that The Squirrel is not an approved campus publication. But it shouldn’t have to be a chartered publication to share goofy jokes with the campus, especially considering the creator(s?) value(s) anonymity. We shouldn’t just rely on campus-approved sources of information (although I recognize the irony of that sentence, as an editor of a campus-approved, but independent and student-run newspaper). Students frequently form short-lived advocacy campaigns to solve problems on campus. These groups do not always need to go through the lengthy chartering process to accomplish their goals. But if an unchartered student campaign tried to spread information about their beliefs by leaving papers on tables in Lowry, would they be censored? I hope not, but The Squirrel’s experience suggests they would be.
Should every student campaign be forced to go through the charter application process, which occurs only once per semester? Should they be forced to undergo the scrutiny of the charter committee and Campus Council, which may or may not approve of their motivations? And if they choose not to undergo those processes, should they really be forbidden from spreading their message?
I think not, and I think it is a problem for everyone if that’s the standard we hold student advocacy campaigns to. When we accept censorship of a silly newsletter, we are tacitly accepting the censorship of any future campaign we might choose to be a part of. Further, we are accepting that administrators should be able to control what information we get to see on the tables in Lowry: the content we share about issues we believe in. I can’t accept that, as a member of a liberal arts community. And neither should you.
Maddi O’Neill, an Editor In Chief of the Voice, can be reached for comment at moneill16@wooster.edu