Calls to Defund Wesleyan University Paper After Black Lives Matter Piece

Wesleyan University’s college newspaper, The Wesleyan Argus is under fire from fellow students after a controversial opinion article was written on the Black Lives Matter movement.

A petition discussed at the Wesleyan Student Assembly open forum calls for a boycott of the paper and defunding it, according to the Argus.

There were 147 signatures from students and faculty as of Monday night.

The petition demands:

The Argus to create work study/course credit positions; a monthly report on allocation of funds and leadership structure; a required once-per-semester Social Justice/Diversity training for all student publications; active recruitment and advertisement; and open space on the front page in the publication dedicated to marginalized groups/voices, specifying that if no submissions are received, The Argus will print a section labeled “for your voice.”

Wesleyan president Michael Roth and two other administrators wrote a joint statement about the controversy.

“Debates can raise intense emotions, but that doesn’t mean that we should demand ideological conformity because people are made uncomfortable,” they wrote (read full statement here). As members of a university community, we always have the right to respond with our own opinions, but there is no right not to be offended.”

Organizers of the petition declined to comment to the Argus because they are boycotting the paper, according to the Argus.

Read the opinion article here.

Read the full Argus article here.

Image via Anuj Biyani/Flickr Commons