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College newspaper columnist stirs anger
By Chris Moran
STAFF WRITER
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050218/news_6m18sun.html

February 18, 2005

CHULA VISTA – A college newspaper opinion piece calling for a crackdown on illegal immigrants has critics calling it a racist incitement to violence.

Campus journalists, many of whom disagree with the piece politically, say they stand by First Amendment rights to publish unpopular opinions.

Reaction to the commentary has been strident.

Protesters posted abusive fliers on the door of the newspaper's office. The writer of the opinion piece and the newspaper's faculty adviser said they have been threatened or harassed.

The escalating rancor prompted students to hold a forum last week in the campus free-speech plaza to talk about the issue.

Student Nathaniel Pownell's opinion piece in The Southwestern College Sun on illegal immigration states, "It is time to burn the leaches (sic) off our society and crack down on the people who flagrantly take advantage of America's wealth and prosperity."

That's tantamount to Nazis calling Jews parasites, critics say, and has no place in a newspaper. Student groups have called for a boycott of the Sun. It's a free publication, but the student groups are urging people not to pick it up off the racks.

Pownell said the line was not a call to burn or harm people, but to cut off the publicly funded benefits that illegal immigrants receive.

Protesting student groups accuse the Sun of hiding behind the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression, including speech and the press.

Campus journalists maintain that while the rhetoric of the commentary is edgy, the First Amendment is meant to protect unpopular viewpoints.

Students For Community Action, a campus socialist group, and MEChA, a campus Chicano group, have called for a retraction and apology from the Sun for publishing the commentary.

"We feel he crossed the line," said MEChA co-chairwoman Gaby Arenivas. "He's attacking a group of people that can't come and tell him, 'No, don't do this.' "

Pownell said he has already told his detractors, "I'd like to apologize if I hurt your feelings, but I'm not going to apologize for what I wrote."


In December
It all started in early December.
When the student editors saw the piece by Pownell, the lone conservative voice on a staff of self-described liberals, they anticipated a possible backlash, but decided to publish it in the interest of presenting a range of viewpoints.

The Sun has won more than 400 local, regional and national journalism awards in the past three years. A banner in the front office announces, "Southwestern College Sun, 2003-04 National Pacemaker Award, Pulitzer Prize of college journalism."

The Sun's regular run of 5,000 copies hit the stands Dec. 8. The paper is distributed throughout campus, as well as citywide at stores, coffee shops and libraries. Newspaper staffers said there were no calls, letters or comments in the days following publication.

But when students came back from break on Jan. 19, Arenivas saw fellow MEChA members crying and angrily denouncing the piece as they read it. MEChA called for a meeting with both the Sun staff and the college administration.

"We made it clear at that meeting that it was an individual opinion," said Sun faculty adviser Max Branscomb. "It was on the Viewpoints page, and it did not come close to reflecting the point of view of the staff as a whole."

Branscomb's wife, Leslie Wolf Branscomb, is a staff writer at The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Robin McCubbin, a faculty adviser for Students For Community Action, attended the meeting. He later wrote in a statement to the college's faculty that the piece was "a racist attack and call for violence (How else should the recommendation of the application of fire to the body of a living organism be characterized?)."

In an interview, McCubbin said, "Even if it's legal, is there any justification for it appearing in a newspaper for our campus?"

But MEChA faculty adviser Margarita Andrade-Robledo was won over by Branscomb's defense of freedom of the press.

"I don't like the article, but the First Amendment gives them that right" to publish it, she concluded.

Because Andrade-Robledo would not support the club in continuing to call for a retraction and an apology, the MEChA board ousted her as adviser.

MEChA and Students for Community Action organized last week's forum to talk about the commentary.

When student journalists showed up at the Sun office on the morning of the forum, the door was plastered with fliers. The messages included, "Kiss my brown illegal ass, Nathaniel," "Racism has to go" and "Lynchings used to be announced in newspapers."

Campus police took photos of the fliers. Sgt. Torrance Carrington, the college's interim chief of police, said the only violation is of a municipal ordinance against unauthorized posting of fliers. But since police don't know who did it, there's no one to charge.

Branscomb was invited to speak at the forum. He said he tried but was quickly shouted down by angry students. Other speakers denounced the Sun for publishing the piece.

Branscomb said that the next day, as he walked toward the Sun's office, a group of students gave him a Nazi-style salute.


Right to publish
Paola Ivette Monroy, an editor and sex columnist at the paper, said that she was once an illegal immigrant, and she disagrees with Pownell, but she supports the Sun's right to publish his commentary.
As she was walking to class with Pownell last week, she said, two young men threatened to assault them.

Pownell said he intends to continue writing opinion pieces for the paper. He said he's considering suing the student groups for defamation of character.

Arenivas said the student groups are also considering litigation, though she didn't specify on what grounds.

She said another option is to start an alternative campus paper that would be funded by taking half the Sun's budget.

Southwestern College spokeswoman Nevada Smith said the administration's position is that the Sun had the right to publish the piece and that MEChA had the right to protest it.

College President Norma Hernandez said at the campus student government meeting yesterday that she would consider the protesting groups' request for funding for a second newspaper.

Branscomb said he was trying to educate the campus community on the difference between news and opinion, between unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper's official view and signed commentary that represents individual opinion.

There's a lesson for his students, too, he said.

"A good ending is that journalism students will learn that they have to choose their words carefully and you can hurt people without trying," he said.

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Chris Moran: (619) 498-6637; chris.moran@uniontrib.com


Original Story as it appeared in the December 2004 Sun campus newspaper
http://66.135.39.97/SunEditorial.pdf

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