Letter to the editor

Theft brings memories of similar incident

The more things change, the more things stay the same. The story about a student who stole issues of the Student Voice because of something contained in the paper brought back memories from the early 1980s.

I forget the exact details, but a story or opinion piece ran in the Voice that was critical of a particular fraternity off-campus. It was during the time I was editor of the student newspaper.

The day after the paper hit the streets, we found out that several fraternity brothers had rounded up copies of the newspaper and disposed of them. We were less than thrilled with the attempt to censor the story and the campus police got involved. I don’t recall what happened to the students.

Now that it’s all happened again, let me repeat some advice that a police chief in a small town of Wisconsin tells people who don’t like what the newspaper puts in print.

“If there are things you do that gets your name in the paper and you don’t like it, stop doing those things,” he says. “If there are things you do that gets your name in the paper and you like that positive publicity, keep doing those things.”

Hopefully it’s a life lesson learned.

Jeff Holmquist
Former Student Voice editor