University of Georgia student newspaper Editor in Chief Polina Marinova — who walked out to protest the paper’s takeover by a board with the same sure-footed sense of how universities work that the University of Virginia trustees recently showed — now returns to the editorial office triumphant, vindicated.
She walked out by herself (background here), but was followed soon after by the rest of the staff. Non-stop international media coverage of the scandal ensued, just as it did in the case of the University of Virginia trustees’ effort to toss out the university’s president.
Now the fools who tried to turn The Red & Black into an arm of the university’s public relations office have apologized; one of them has resigned; and the students will apparently be reinstated.
Polina, Polina.
Gal, you’re on my mind.
August 18th, 2012 at 4:04PM
I must correct you. The Red & Black is an independent, student-run newspaper that has a board of directors and is not affiliated with the University of Georgia. Your assertion in the first part of your last paragraph is wrong. The tug-of-war has been between the Red & Black student staff and the paper’s board of directors…not the university.
Bob Taylor
UGA
Office of the VP for Public Affairs
August 18th, 2012 at 5:08PM
I take your point, and I’ll correct the paragraph to make things clearer. But of course the tug of war is ultimately totally about the university – about how it is going to present itself to its community and the world, and about the extent to which it values free speech.