By David Gordon, associate editor
Some two months short of our fifth anniversary, we’ve reached a couple of milestones as we also welcome a new member to the CVPost board of directors.
Taking these items serially:
ONE. We’re delighted to be joined by Patricia Scott on the CVPost board. She’s currently a co-leader of the Eau Claire chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and a member of the JONAH Environmental Task Force, has written at least one story for us, and brings a plentiful store of both energy and ideas to the board. Welcome!
TWO. The board has discussed almost since our website launch how we could enable our readers to comment on stories we post. There has been strong support for this in the abstract but the consensus was always that we wouldn’t set this up until we were able to moderate those comments to ensure they were civil and relevant.
It’s finally time!
That time has finally arrived! Starting on Monday (Dec. 16), we’ll phase in opportunities for you to comment on anything our staff writes for the website and the opportunities for comments will expand as we gain more experience with them. Your comments will go to Madeline Fuerstenberg, our ever-more-experienced community reporter, who will make sure they square with our “Guidelines for Comments” that will be displayed everywhere you’ll be able to comment.
Because of the importance of the topic, we have opened our Dec. 12 editorial (see below) on the Snapchat controversy for comments ahead of Dec. 16.
We’re looking for respectful and, hopefully, thought-provoking comments that do not use profanity or demeaning language. We won’t accept personal attacks, anonymous comments or material that could expose us to libel suits.
Within those parameters, please have at it. And, while you’re at it, tip your cap to The Spectator, which shared its guidelines so we could adapt them rather than reinventing the wheel. We thank Maddie Fuerstenberg, The Spectator’s editor-in-chief this semester and next, for her help with this.
THREE. If you’ve subscribed to the CVPost newsletter that notifies you when anything new goes up on the website, or if you follow us on Facebook, you already know we’ve taken our first editorial stand. It’s a step that probably was overdue but time constraints made the necessary research difficult on a couple of occasions when we considered that possibility.
Additionally, from the beginning, we’ve encouraged our readers – that’s you, folks – to send us opinion pieces (hopefully, thoughtful ones) for our “Opinion and Analysis” section. Some of you have done that and we hope others will take advantage of this opportunity.
Editorial stand is needed
This past week, though, we encountered a situation that cried out for an editorial stand – the refusal of UW-Eau Claire officials to let the public know what sanctions have been imposed on the five Blugold football players whose racist remarks on Snapchat have created a furor on campus and beyond.
We strongly suspect, and certainly hope, that the UW-EC leadership would like to release that information. Our guess is that Chancellor Jim Schmidt feels constrained by adverse legal advice from a UW-System lawyer in Madison. (Click here to see the letter transmitting that advice, and then draw your own conclusions.)
As noted in the editorial, we think that lawyer is reading the relevant federal law erroneously and perhaps is operating on the principle that if UW-EC releases little or no information, there’s no chance that it will run afoul of anything the law prohibits. That, however, ignores the fact that the public deserves to know just how responsibly the university is handling the situation.
To clear up any potential misunderstanding, we’re not suggesting that UW-EC release the names of the five sanctioned players. That’s prohibited by the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). What we are suggesting is that a common-sense reading of that law contains no prohibition on telling the public what those sanctions are, with no names mentioned.
(There’s a major irony here, of course, since the names are already public – especially on campus – both via Snapchat and in the Spectator photo of the online conversation in which at least four names are clearly visible. We may dig a bit deeper into this aspect of the story, because a superficial look leaves a couple of surprising facts concealed. But that’s a topic for another day.)
Stay tuned, because this story is far from over. As one of our CVPost board members said after the board’s discussion this week on how to proceed most responsibly, “stay on top of it, because it’s an important story.”
BONUS – THREE POINT FIVE. If you haven’t subscribed to one or both of our newsletters and would like to sign up, go to the bottom of the middle column on our home page, fill in the form, check the box for either or both of the newsletters listed there, and hit “Subscribe.”