It’s a terrible example of social censorship.
There are multiple stories (read here for an example, and another one, and another one) every semester about students stealing copies of university newspapers to keep information with which they do not agree from being distributed.
Many students don’t understand that newspaper theft is a crime. Student newspapers aren’t cheap to produce. For example, the student newspaper I advise costs about $400 an issue just to print. This does not include the cost of equipment and staff necessary to produce content.
Stealing the student newspaper is a punishable, criminal offense.
It’s also insulting to student media when their peers care so little about their work. Imagine laboring over something for hours only to have your friends steal it and throw it away.
More than anything, student newspaper theft reinforces a terrible societal habit. It tells the culprits that they should eliminate, through whatever means necessary, information with which they do not agree. It’s an idea students may learn from their parents and one society frequently reinforces (read an example here).
Our Founding Fathers fought against censorship, resulting in the creation of our democracy. But censorship never ended. It’s an ongoing battle.
We fight against censorship from powerful entities like government, but many of us never fully consider where the censoring behavior begins or how it is reinforce.
The academy is no place for censorship. It is the place for exploration and seeking greater understanding.
As John Stuart Mill claimed, we should expose ourselves to ideas counter to our own in an effort to continually test our own principles. The academy is the place where students should be learning and testing their own principles, not attempting to eliminate others’.
Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t give you the right to forbid someone else from saying it.
