Brown and White Vol. 125 no. 9

              Vol. 125 No. 9
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
‘All the Lehigh News First’
THE BROWN AND WHITE
Lehigh University’s Student Newspaper Founded in 1894
SPORTS
Football’s winning streak ends
Page 16
ONLINE
Poll: How did you hear about #FBR?
thebrownandwhite.com
Lights, camera, action: ‘Medea’
Page 9
LIFESTYLE
Friday morning, reporters from The Brown and White went out to do their job, to report the news regarding the protests on campus. When they went to gather information, however, the protestors refused to speak with them and made multiple efforts to limit their coverage.
A major problem that arose from this situation is that The Brown and White became a component of the story we were reporting. Students were confused as to what was going on as we attempted to provide answers online via Twitter de­spite the complications. Some even questioned whether the event was protesting The Brown and White itself, and the group’s refusal to speak with reporters sparked a dialogue based solely on its decision not to talk to a campus publication.
We, the editorial board, do not seek to become news, but rather aim to act as a vehicle to spread news and the message of the news itself.
Which leads us to the ques­tion that arose Friday: What is the role of The Brown and White as a student newspaper on campus?
We believe that this is what we tried to answer this week­end, and feel the need to ad­dress here, as it is an important question in this kind of situa­tion. The Brown and White is a news source. Our role is simple. The role of a news source is to take the facts and portray them to an interested audience as ac­curately as possible.
Our ability to do so, how­ever, is severely limited when the facts are partially or entirely obscured from our understand­ing of a situation. We do our best to report, but when we cannot confirm information we will not report it.
We are a student newspaper, and we will continue to fill that role on Lehigh University’s campus. We do not decide what part of an event is news and what is not, and we do not strive to become a part of the news we report. If something happens on campus that inter­ests the Lehigh community, we do our best to cover it. If there is a breaking news event on campus, we report it and stick with the beat until the story is told. If something is newswor­thy, we cover it to the best of our ability.
Above all, we will continue to stick to our motto and we will always strive to bring to the campus “All the Lehigh News First.”
From the Editors:
Famed journalist lectures on international relations
The Lehigh principles of our equitable community are much more than posters on our walls and documents that we sign. They are enduring principles that we count on to guide us during times of dif­ficulty and doubt.
We are at such a moment when it is necessary to reflect on what these principles mean, not in just their words, but in how they are enacted in our lives at our university.
A tragic incident off cam­pus has changed the lives of at least two students and left many more of us question­ing, speculating and seeking answers about the reasons for conflicts in our community. We know less than we want to know. Differing accounts in the media and on campus in­crease our uncertainty. We are impatient for answers.
The criminal justice system and student conduct process will determine the facts and this will take time. Waiting for fact-finding processes, whether in the justice system or our student conduct system, does not help overcome our uncertainty, but it is an endur­ing principle of our society’s definition of fairness and due process. Additionally, federal law protecting the privacy of student records will mean that the results of our student con­duct system will not be made public. One thing we cannot do, now or in the future, is rely upon rumors for answers or al­low different hearsay accounts of the incident to divide us.
So where do we turn when the answers are not there when we want them?
We look to our principles.
Our principles are about respecting one another, work­ing to promote understanding and creating an environment where we can be ourselves, and enjoy and appreciate one another.
This mutual respect and understanding can be harder than it sounds. It may make us uncomfortable to learn that others may perceive us very differently than we see our­selves. There may be many times when we think that we understand one another, only to find that we have inad­vertently insulted or slighted somebody. We must constant­ly be mindful of the effects of our words and actions.
We can talk about under­standing and yet we cannot hide behind excuses for mis­understanding, dissension, or hatred. Not understanding is not good enough. The recent incident has served as a cata­lyst for some among us that often feel marginalized in our community and experience that their voices are not heard; whether due to the color of their skin, religious beliefs, gender, socio-economic status, or sexual orientation. We are
From Lehigh’s President, Alice P. Gast:
See GAST Page 2
Marginalized students protest campus culture
B&W photo by KATIE HOMMES
Four students turn their backs on a Brown and White reporter as she tries to photograph them in President Gast’s office.
By CHRISTINA CAVANAUGH
Students dressed in black and white formal attire with duct-taped mouths walked through campus on Friday, October 4 to protest their un­heard voices as members of the Lehigh community.
The protest—organized by a group of students that refers to itself as “FBR,” standing for ‘From Beneath the Rug’ —began around 11:45 a.m. A group of students met in the Multicultural Center in the University Center with the intent of holding a sit-in on Lehigh President Alice Gast’s front steps.
Several members spoke to the students, instructing the group not to speak to re­porters from The Brown and White; the group’s members then placed duct tape on their mouths and wrote racially and politically derogatory words on the duct tape.
Following a final discus­sion, the protesters made their
See PROTEST Page 3
By ABBY SMITH
“You’ve got to hold the most powerful people in the country to the highest possible standard,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh as he addressed the Le­high community gathered in Baker Hall Thursday night.
“There’s not anything courageous about it,” he con­tinued. “It just makes sense to me.”
Hersh, an investigative journalist who has worked for multiple publications includ­ing The New York Times and The New Yorker, spoke at the university as part of Lehigh’s annual Tresolini Lecture in Law. He is most known for uncovering the My Lai mas­sacre during the Vietnam War and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse.
B&W photo by CHRIS BARRY
Seymour Hersh, at a lecture last Thursday afternoon, addresses students in the Zoellner Arts Center.
During Thursday’s lecture, Hersh addressed American foreign policy, specifically focusing on recent conflicts in the Middle East. He told the crowd one of the things he likes to do is to take a look at global events and see things from a different perspective.
See HERSH Page 4