The topic of censorship is one that any journalist or newspaper wannabe will talk at length.
In the process, they will become red in the face, slap their hands and declare things like, "You are ignoring the fact that ..." and, "It's naive to think that ..." and "vis-a-vis" and "in accordance with" and "What are you, an idiot?"
And they will throw up their hands and stomp out of the room.
It is frustrating to journalists to think that there is relevant information people don't want to know or hear. It is frustrating because ignorance, as it turns out, really is bliss, and that when people decide they don't want to know or hear about something they are deciding to opt for ignorance. It is frustrating because the truth sometimes is more difficult to believe than the worst fiction.
The topic of censorship is a sensitive one. It cuts to the heart of our American experiment - the idea that we have the right to know what is going on so we can make informed decisions, to know about threats to our livelihood, to know what the laws are and why we are incarcerated by them.
There is a message scrawled on the ceiling of the newsroom in Kedzie Hall - just on the other side of the fluorescent light from former press secretary Marlin Fitzwater's illegibly scribbled words. It reads: "Information is the currency of democracy," and it is attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
I have looked at that message hundreds of times and let my mind wander over its meaning.
When the populace is too ill-informed to give its leaders direction, a democracy simply becomes a novel form of dictatorship.
So if we travel halfway across the country to another KSU, a land grant school whose total enrollment last year was just over 2,300 students, we find the picture of a school operating under censorship. This is the picture of Kentucky State University, where a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Kincaid vs. Gibson has found in favor of administrators who decided to confiscate the school yearbook over stylistic concerns.
They didn't like the color of the cover, they took issue over the inclusion of international events and they had grievance with the fact that some of the photos lacked captions.
They also had a problem with the yearbook's theme, aptly titled "Destination Unknown."
This editorial concern taken by administrators extended to the school's newspaper. They demanded the removal of editorial cartoons critical of administrators. They transferred the journalism adviser to the housing department because she refused to pull a certain letter to the editor - transferring her back only after a grievance was filed and with the stipulation that the news content of the paper was to be more positive and the paper was to be reviewed by the student publications board before going to print.
Technically, these requests were outside the boundary of responsibility of the board defined by K-State's student handbook.
Technically, the court of appeals based their decision on a case decided for high schools - Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier.
Technically, they apparently didn't care.
The Hazelwood case, in short, is based on the idea that a high school principal is responsible for the distribution of funding, and that a high school newspaper is dependent on that funding. The principal, therefore, acts as publisher. Since Student Publications, Inc., were dependent on an $80 mandatory activity fee from students, the same logic applied.
We are spared at K-State for the time being because the Collegian was incorporated to be a forum for student opinion, which apparently grants us immunity. But we must ask ourselves what the ramifications are for a campus where free speech is limited. Can learning exist in an environment where individuals are not permitted to share their opinions - where faculty and students are not allowed to truly address pressing social issues because they are inappropriate, damaging or taboo?
Of course not.
Now, what's really going to bake your noodle is whether or not that should apply to K-State's policy on racial, ethnic or sexual harassment - and where the line is drawn.
Consider that during Banned Book Week.