Racial Scandals Seen in College Papers

A prank article in Princeton’s newspaper, a parody of a Christmas carol in a Tufts’ journal, and the cover of Dartmouth’s bi-weekly paper—all published within the past three months—have turned national media attention toward the issue of journalistic integrity and responsibility on college campuses.

All three publications have since issued apologies after their publications caused an uproar among readers alleging racism, discrimination, and insensitivity.

Today, “there is so much more scrutiny and exposure that what could be a small campus issue becomes a national one,” said Jonathan J. Lehman ’08, the Crimson sports chair whose piece on sports teams’ mascots was widely criticized by the Native Americans at Harvard (NAHC).

The New York Times covered the Princeton controversy and The Boston Globe reported on the Tufts’ imbroglio, and numerous blogs covered all three controversies.

The Princeton article, which was written in broken English, parodied an Asian-American student who, after being denied admission, sued the school for discrimination. The article appeared in the paper’s annual prank edition.

The column began, “Hi Princeton! Remember me? I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400 SAT score. Ring bells?”

The writers, some of whom were Asian, said that their intent was not to insult Asians, but rather to mock the very stereotypes racism employs.

But many on campus found the article offensive and 629 students have joined the Facebook group “Dear Daily Prince, This Isn’t Funny, It’s Racist.”

Only a month before, Tufts had faced a similar reader reaction, as The Primary Source—Tufts’ conservative journal—published a parody of the song “O Come All Ye Faithful.” The Tufts’ editors said that their version, called “O Come All Ye Black Folk” was aimed at criticizing the school’s affirmative action policies.

After the article provoked outrage, the journal retracted the piece and issued an apology.

“This was not my intention; it is not the opinion of The Primary Source that there are no qualified black students at Tufts University or that any of the other generalizations in the song are true,” reads the editor’s note. “I apologize that this carol did not accurately reflect the views of The Primary Source, and I take full responsibility for failing to edit it to ensure that it did.”

And at Dartmouth, tensions over the school’s former mascot—the Indian—have lingered for years, but a series of events brought the issue to the forefront of campus debate this fall.

In November, Athletic Director JoAnn “Josie” Harper publicly apologized for inviting the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux hockey team to a tournament being held at Dartmouth.

The University of North Dakota’s continuing use of a Native American mascot “is offensive and wrong,” she wrote in a letter to the editor published in The Dartmouth, the student-run daily.

A week later, The Dartmouth Review published an issue entitled “The Natives are Getting Restless” and its cover depicted a Native American holding a scalp.

An editorial in the same issue called Harper’s letter “appalling,” saying that her decision made Dartmouth the “laughingstock of all of academia.”

“The administration and the campus as a whole owe the [Native Americans at Dartmouth] no sort of olive branch until [they] prove themselves willing to engage in a reasonable, productive dialogue,” the editorial reads. “Up to this point, they have not demonstrated that they are capable of, or willing to do so.”

The newspaper issued an apology for the cover, which they said was intended as a “hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek commentary,” but did not apologize for the editorial content of the issue.

While Harvard has mostly escaped such large-scale controversies, a sports column in The Crimson angered some on campus, including members of Native Americans at Harvard College.

The article, which addressed the political correctness of Native American sports mascots, concluded with the line, “I think the Crimson would’ve slaughtered the Indians,” in reference to the possibility of a game between the Arkansas State Indians and the Harvard Crimson.

The director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, S. Allen Counter, said that the University has avoided such controversies due to the open dialogue between diverse groups on campus.

Counter said that the Foundation offers programs and seminars aimed at promoting better understanding among the diverse student body, affecting “particularly those who have the responsibility of writing for campus publications, [who] will develop a sense of cultural competence, sensitivity, tolerance, and awareness of our diverse student body.”

—Staff writer Daniela Nemerenco can be reached at dnemeren@fas.harvard.edu.