BACKSLIDING

The Gorgon of Faculty censorship has raised its snaky locks at Ann Arbor: as a result, sixteen members of the Michigan "Sunday Magazine" have resigned. The particulars vary with the point of view. The editors point to a series of faculty interventions which made their positions impossible. A scientific article on gland transference, approved by a professor, roused the final outburst which precipitated their resignations. By the other camp this article is described as intentionally repulsive and disgusting; and the editor of the "Daily", the superior of the "Magazine" is said to have asked the unruly staff of the latter to leave.

But this restraint exerted by the "Board in Control of Student Publications" has not been continued to this one case, or even one paper In 1921 the trenchant exposures of a certain evil and irreverent student were forbidden in all university publications. Later an editor of the "Magazine" was taken to task severely on account of a favorable review of that iniquitous journal, "The Nation." And it is undeniable that the editor of the "Gargoyle" was threatened with expulsion if he continued to print jokes on prohibition or co-eds,--which seems to be the one really judicious bit of censorship accomplished by the Board. Extreme measures were excusable in that instance.

The fact remains, however, that at a place where intellectual freedom should be the guiding spirit, a vital liberty,--freedom of the press,--was infringed. No matter what the students choose to print, faculty censorship should not be resorted to. Suppression by government is justifiable only on grounds of public emergency. In the universities, no consideration whatsoever ought to take precedence over the unrestricted expression of the students, ill-advised or tactless as it may be.

Since 1866, when Mother Advocate's ancestor was hushed up, student publications here have been unmolested. It has not been merely for want of offense. Some of Lampy's outrageous puns might well bear repression. But the University, often criticised by the western colleges for ultra-conservatism, has firmly established the freedom of the student press; Michigan, for one, seems to have retrogressed toward censorship by the authorities.