Free Speech in School Newspapers

I have been writing opinion pieces since my prep year. Writing op-eds has been a large part of my time at Exeter, and now I am lucky enough to hold the position of Senior Columnist. I feel that I represent a part of the Op-Ed section not just because of my position, but because of my weekly contributions over the past three years. My time at The Exonian has not always been easy. I have clashed with editors and felt frustrated by some of the decision The Exonian makes, but there have been recent, unacceptable events happening at the paper that need to be addressed. Writers and their rights need to be protected. Consider this my way to protect the valuable writers at The Exonian.

After Mai Hoang’s article about the “woke” side of Assembly Hall was published, the campus blew up in debate on whether she was right or wrong in her assertion that some students need to rethink their approach to activism. In an interesting twist, Mai recanted her statement in last week’s Exonian. Yet Mai’s second article was not the only one that should have appeared in last week’s issue. Jack Zhang had written an even more extreme extension of Mai’s first article. He argued that the best way to practice social justice is at the grassroots level with student activism. He claimed that adding new branches to the administration, such as a director of equity and inclusion, and having repeated assemblies on similar social topics do not help social movements. The executive and opinions editors either agreed that the article should be published or did not strongly feel that it should not be published. The Exonian advisers read Jack’s piece, and vetoed publishing it for that week. Students were required to take the article to the Publications Committee, and the committee head asked the students and advisers to try and work out the problem with the article internally. The committee never met to discuss the article, but some students fought for its publication, and because of this, it is now in this issue of The Exonian. Nonetheless, the attempt to silence the article was a clear, disappointing act of censorship.

The censorship of opinions is authoritarian, and it contradicts the values of America, this school and education in general. It is an abomination that the narrow views on freedom of speech held by a few faculty members should dictate whether a student’s voice should be heard. There is a singular, orthodox way in which we think of important issues of the day, especially social justice, that has been adopted in Exeter’s society in particular. Jack Zhang’s op-ed simply disagrees with the identity politics that he believes our administration plays into and supports focusing our attention on aspects of social justice different from those that we normally discuss. Whether you agree or disagree with Hoang and Zhang is another matter, but there is no contesting that they have a right to speak their minds. The Exonian is founded on informing students and projecting student voices. Yet we are undermining all that journalism stands for by limiting free speech on the false basis that the article attacks members of our community. You must read the article for yourself, of course, but there is no doubt that this article strays away from the typical mindset when approaching social justice. This alone, though, does not make it dangerous to publish. Those who have argued against the publication of any non-threatening, non-discriminatory opinions piece need to reconsider their position and reflect on their values.

The issue of censorship and freedom of speech is one that will persist until the end of media. This incident with The Exonian is representative of what happens in media around the world. As writers, it is imperative that we stand up for our own published (and unpublished) work and others’ work. We cannot allow politics and personal opinion to interfere with the liberty we have to publish what we want. The day that we do is the day that our writing becomes meaningless.