UC-Santa Barbara Student Newspaper Editors to Reject Opinion Pieces That Make People Feel Unsafe
“In the past, this section’s commitment to free speech has often contradicted this effort to cultivate safe spaces.”
Progressive college students seem to have two speeds. They’re either in your face with a bold and brave protest, or retreating to a safe space.
The College Fix reports:
UCSB student newspaper editors pledge to reject opinion pieces that cause discomfort
Opinion editors at the Daily Nexus, the student-run newspaper at the University of California Santa Barbara, recently pledged to not publish opinion pieces that make people feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
“In the past, this section’s commitment to free speech has often contradicted this effort to cultivate safe spaces. When articles are repeatedly given consideration despite their potential to directly or indirectly alienate communities in the name of free speech, we fail as a section and a publication as a whole,” stated an open letter, signed by Emily Kocis and Toni Shindler-Ruberg, opinion editors at the Daily Nexus.
“Pieces that directly infringe on the safety or sense of security of any individual or group do not have a place in our section,” the two wrote in their Dec. 2 “Letter From the Opinion Editors.”
The announcement was published the same day that Maya Pacheco, one of the student newspaper’s diversity and inclusion chairs, resigned from the post.
Pacheco cited pushback from the student newspaper staff “against efforts for critical introspection” which “derails from the opportunity to be transparent and understand how to operate within one’s allyship.”
“Endeavors aimed at cultivating social restorative balance require the acknowledgment of hierarchical structures that enable the imbalance of power. Consequently, the overall efforts to police and silence the position are what have led me to my resignation,” Pacheco wrote.
OPINION | Pieces that directly infringe on the safety or sense of security of any individual or group do not have a place in our section. https://t.co/QSV253HiKW
— Daily Nexus (@dailynexus) December 2, 2021
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Comments
Are you sure this is really a University and not a preschool?
“UCSB student newspaper editors pledge to reject opinion pieces that cause discomfort”
I don’t believe them. I expect they’ll publish plenty of opinion pieces that cause discomfort to people they disagree with politically. They just won’t allow criticism of those they agree with.
Stripped of its pretentions, it just means they’re announcing that they do not aspire to be journalists because really they’d prefer to be political hacks producing opinion pieces that are as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise.
“Progressive college students seem to have two speeds. They’re either in your face with a bold and brave protest, or retreating to a safe space.”
It’s like the chick with glasses who sneaks up behind you and lets you have it with a 2×4, but screams if you retaliate, because she’s a chick… with glasses.
They should have said that they reject opinions that make leftist snowflakes feel unsafe. Everybody else can go pound sand.
Ideas that make you feel unsafe should be why you are in college.