David Spett

A recent alumnus of Campus Progress’ journalism network has penned a prominent feature story in this week’s print edition of The Nation.

Michael Tracey, the founder and former editor of The Perspective, a Campus Progress-sponsored publication at The College of New Jersey, is currently a Nation editorial intern. His article, “The Rise of Chris Christie, Governor Wrecking Ball,” appears on page 15 of The Nation’s December 6 issue.

Tracey is no stranger to the national spotlight. Earlier this year, he made national news when, in The Perspective, he quoted possible presidential candidate Mike Huckabee comparing homosexuality to incest, drug use, and polygamy.

Michael Tracey addresses the crowd at Campus Progress' journalism training summit on August 15, 2010.

Tracey’s latest story ponders the New Jersey governor’s remarkable nationwide appeal: “Just about every relevant Republican constituency has found something to be taken with in Chris Christie,” Tracey writes, even amidst the strife between Tea Party factions and the Republican Party establishment.

Yet the very acts making Christie popular in the short term—in particular, his demonization of unions and near-fetishizing of spending cuts, the inspiration for his nickname “the wrecking ball”—are likely to turn voters against him once they experience the effects, Tracey says:

From pre-kindergarten programs to maintaining state parks, even the most benign public services have become politicized as they fall victim to the “wrecking ball.” Suburban communities … have been forced to eliminate their schools’ music and sports programs; facilities for the mentally ill are closing down; professors at state universities are being furloughed. … [Christie] turned down a compromise with the union that would have brought the state millions in federal education funding because ‘it was intolerable for him to be perceived as giving in to the [union]’ … In April he revoked the state global-warming fund of its entire $65 million allocation; in July he eliminated all $7.5 million in taxpayer support for women’s health services.

All this in addition to canceling the nation’s largest infrastructure project, known as the ARC tunnel, even though it was receiving federal matching funds, construction had already begun, it was expected to pay for itself, and the state was required to repay the feds $271 million that was already spent.

It’s not easy for recent college graduates—or anyone, for that matter—to get published in the print edition of one of the country’s foremost political magazines. Congratulations to Michael Tracey on his outstanding accomplishment and his truly fascinating article about a politician with a disturbing ideology.

(Cross-posted at CampusProgress.org)

Is discrimination on campus ever necessary? A prominent civil liberties group says yes, and its argument is remarkably persuasive.

Student organizations like the College Democrats and evangelical bible study groups can’t exist without the right to exclude dissenters, says Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). This amounts to a necessary form of discrimination against students who disagree with a group’s mission.

If a university required its progressive magazine to accept columns from every conservative student, “how would you prevent the magazine from being watered down or taken over, or from losing its integrity?” Lukianoff says. “Discriminating on the basis of viewpoint is part and parcel of having a viewpoint-based group.”

Without that ability to discriminate, he says, student groups are denied their First Amendment right to freedom of association.

He made the comments in a Monday speech before the National Association of Scholars, a conservative nonprofit working to counter an alleged “liberal bias” in academia. Yet FIRE is a nonpartisan organization, and Lukianoff says he accepts speaking invitations from groups representing all viewpoints.

He focused his speech on a June 28 Supreme Court decision in CLS v. Martinez. The 5-4 ruling, with the court’s four liberals plus Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority, went against an evangelical Christian group at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law that required its members to sign a “statement of faith” proclaiming, among other things, their opposition to premarital and gay sex.

Hastings stripped the evangelical Christian group, known as the Christian Legal Society, of its official recognition, preventing it from obtaining college funding and limiting its ability to reserve rooms and advertise meetings.

In his speech, Lukianoff assailed the court’s decision, calling it “fraught with willful blindness.” He says it directly contradicted previous rulings and has “panic-worthy” implications for students at public colleges and universities with similar policies.

He cites Central Michigan University, one such institution, as an example. There, progressive students published on Facebook their intention to band together, join the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative group on campus, and run for elected office.

The way Lukianoff describes it, you wouldn’t think anyone sane would agree with the court’s ruling. Enter Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA and author of the popular blog The Volokh Conspiracy, who says the court’s decision makes perfect sense.

The ruling didn’t abridge anyone’s First Amendment rights, Volokh maintains. Just as a university might require groups to limit membership only to students, or to be democratically run, it can also require groups not to discriminate in accepting members.

Such rules don’t abridge students’ right to free association or free speech, Volokh says, since those groups can easily move off campus and operate without formal school recognition:

Just as the right to abortion, speech, or private education doesn’t yield a right to government funding of abortion, speech, or private education—and isn’t even violated by rules that expressly exclude abortion, certain subject matters of speech, or private education from generally available benefit programs—so the right to expressive association isn’t violated by rules that give benefits only to groups that organize themselves in a certain way.

Lukianoff says that’s bollocks. “Official recognition is actually what it means to be a student group,” he says, and it’s nearly impossible for groups to operate without the benefits recognition affords.

“A lot of the time, it means you can’t meet on campuses, can’t apply for student funding, can’t be listed in the student handbook, can’t actually email students,” he says. “It means essentially that you are a nonentity on that campus.”

I’m inclined to agree with Lukianoff and chalk Volokh’s position up to unfamiliarity with student life and campus regulations. While I’ve found policies surrounding student groups to vary widely by campus, it’s usually challenging to operate without formal recognition, particularly at the undergraduate level.

How about on your campus? How easy would it be to operate a viewpoint-based student group without formal recognition? Sound off in the comments.

For more: Check out SCOTUSblog’s analysis of the decision, which adds a few interesting twists.

(Cross-posted at CampusProgress.org)

A Campus Progress-funded magazine has won what’s widely considered the most prestigious award in collegiate journalism: a Pacemaker from the Associated Collegiate Press.

Fusion, an LGBT magazine at Kent State University, won big by taking home one of only five Pacemakers awarded to college student magazines. Fusion won a second award as well, an honorable mention in the “Feature Story of the Year” category for its spring cover piece [PDF] about 19-year-old Aaron Darr’s battle with AIDS. Fusion was also named CP’s Best Overall Publication at our 2010 National Conference this past summer.

“Fusion‘s only been around for seven years, and in less than the past three, it’s grown to be the biggest magazine at Kent State and now reaches across the country. Our Pacemaker is a great acknowledgment of everyone’s work—the stories, the photos, the ads, the promotion—that fueled the latest generation of growth for a once-tiny campus publication,” said Adam Griffiths, Fusion‘s former editor in chief. “It’s been a great experiment in student media, and I hope we’ve inspired others to do great journalism that’s relevant and engaging. This award is a testament to the staying impact of niche publications with a specific voice that have the ability to draw a wide, diverse audience, online and in print.”

Another CP-sponsored magazine, Ethos at the University of Oregon, won 2nd place in the “Diversity Story of the Year” category for its beautifully-written article, “El Poder del Inmigrante (The Power of the Immigrant),” about immigrants working as horse grooms. Ethos was also a finalist for a general magazine Pacemaker.

“Winning ‘Diversity Story of the Year’ is a testament to how committed our staff is to preserving our dedication to important and relevant multicultural conversations,” said Rachael Mitchell, Ethos’ publisher. “We are so very thankful the ACP recognizes that.”

Campus Progress’ victories continue an award-winning trend for our journalism network. In May, another one of our grantees, North by Northwestern, was the sole national winner of the “Best Student Magazine” award from the Society for Professional Journalists.

CP is incredibly proud of its winners, who collectively toiled for thousands of hours over the last school year to share such important stories with readers. These budding journalists’ outstanding work renews our faith that the future of journalism is not so dim after all.

More about the Associated Collegiate Press awards can be found on the organization’s blog.

(Cr0ss-posted at CampusProgress.org)

Bob Steele, who heads an ethics institute at DePauw University and holds a prestigious title at the Poynter Institute, published a disturbing column on CNN.com today that reflects so much of what’s wrong with mainstream journalism.

The crux of Steele’s argument is that advocacy journalism is not journalism at all. Reporters must not be liberal or conservative, he writes, but it’s OK to have opinions that fall at different points along the typical liberal-conservative spectrum. This is a dreadfully wrongheaded argument that collapses when subjected to even the weakest scrutiny.

Since the obsession with objectivity is a pet issue of mine, I submitted the following comment underneath Steele’s piece:

So, if I’ve got this right, “activist-driven” journalism is always bad. Ideological bias is always bad, at least if it’s from the left or right. (How about the middle?) But it’s fine to have “a range of views on issues that move along a spectrum,” whatever that means.

Your analysis fails to acknowledge that much of the best, most impactful and historic journalism is steeped in activism. Would you not consider the following works to be “driven by ideological bias or activist intentions”?
- “Hiroshima” by John Hersey
- “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson
- “Unsafe at any Speed” by Ralph Nader
- Seymour Hersh’s coverage of the My Lai Massacre and torture at Abu Ghraib
- Edward R. Murrow’s takedown of Joe McCarthy

The list goes on.

Your column is wrong because facts are facts; activist intentions can drive journalists to doggedly pursue the truth, or to raise public awareness of an important issue, in a way that they cannot if they are bending over backwards to appear unbiased.

In other words, activist intentions are not inherently problematic or unethical. They just become so when they lead to journalism that shuns fairness and accuracy.

Campus Progress-sponsored publications Fusion and Ethos were recognized today as finalists in the renowned Associated Collegiate Press awards for Magazine Pacemaker and Story of the Year. With 10 total finalists for the Feature Magazine Pacemaker, Campus Progress grantees made up 20 percent of the winners, as well as one of six finalists for Feature Story of the Year and Diversity Story of the Year.

The Magazine Pacemaker awards, judged by the staff of Texas Monthly magazine, honor general excellence in collegiate magazines. The Story of the Year award is judged and co-sponsored and by the New York chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Deadline Club, which selected finalists from a pool of 593 submissions.

Laura Lofgren was recognized for her piece “Nineteen & Positive,” which appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of Fusion, an LGBT-focused magazine at Kent State University funded by Campus Progress. The piece tells the story of Aaron Darr, a young HIV-positive student who is pursuing his dream of being an actor while dealing with the realities of his illness.

Katy George was honored for her piece from the summer edition of Ethos, “El Poder del Inmigrante,” which sheds light on the current immigration debate by examining the experience of a Mexican immigrant working at a barn in the Northwest. Ethos is a multicultural publication at the University of Oregon.

Campus Progress is extremely proud of these young journalists—and although we’re sure they won’t need it, we wish them the best of luck in the final round of the contest! Winners will be announced on October 30 at the 89th Annual ACP/CMA National College Media Convention in Louisville, KY.

NBN logo

I’m thrilled to announce that North by Northwestern, a member of the student journalism network I oversee, just took home the Society of Professional Journalists’ prize for best student magazine in the country.

NBN initially won more than a half-dozen awards in SPJ’s regional competition, including best magazine article, best online feature and best online commentary in its region. Now the magazine has won big at the national level as well.

For more information, see SPJ’s press release announcing all the award winners. Also check out the full (and lengthy) list of NBN’s awards since their founding in 2006. Congratulations, North by Northwestern — we’re so proud of your accomplishments!

(Cross-posted at CampusProgress.org)