Recent controversies regarding pieces that ran in two College-funded publications focused attention on who is ultimately responsible for campus journals.
The Jack-O-Lantern -- which is funded by the Committee on Student Organizations -- came under fire last term when it printed a feature titled "Eskimo Pick Up Lines" and a satire of The Dartmouth Review that contained racial slurs.
The Jack-O-Lantern humor magazine avoided COSO derecognition at the end of Fall term, but its editors need to fulfill certain criteria for the publication to continue to receive money from the student activities fund, COSO decided in November.
When they apply for funding during Winter term, the Jack-O editors will need to demonstrate that they have a faculty advisor with a "high level of involvement with the publication," according to a statement Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy released at the time.
The COSO statement also indicated that an apology should be included in the next issue of the Jack-O in addition to "some serious reflection of [the editors'] understanding of the impact [their] previous attempts at satire and humor have had on the community."
Similar censorship issues involving Uncommon Threads -- also sponsored by COSO -- were raised at the end of last term by The Beacon and The Dartmouth Review when the literary magazine published a graphic short story about a teenager's first lesbian experience.
"We knew it was a risk to publish 'awakening,' but we decided there needed to be a place for that kind of creative writing," Uncommon Threads member Leah Fergenson '98 said.
COSO has not yet received any formal complaints about the story.
The legal responsibility for articles written in College-funded publications depends on the context of the article, College Counsel Sean Gorman said. But the College is not necessarily responsible in all situations, he said.
Giavanna Munafo, director of the Women's Resource Center and the faculty advisor to Uncommon Threads, said advisors are not responsible for the articles written in these publications either.
Munafo said that she does not have a decision-making role within the publication and merely encourages the members to consider the consequences of printing controversial pieces.
"I can't imagine any situation where I would say 'No, you cannot print this,'" said Munafo. "It is unclear who ultimately holds responsibility for published articles."
The Committee on Student Organizations, which determines the amount of money each College-funded publication receives on a term-by-term basis, does not take responsibility for these articles either, Associate Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy said.
"COSO does not censor," Associate Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy said. However, Kennedy pointed out that COSO essentially acts as publisher since the organization controls the funding for the newspapers.
Kennedy said if a COSO publication directly violates the Principles of Community by mishandling funds or mis-treating people, the publication's funding could be denied for the next term.
"Essentially, COSO does hold the power to censor publications it funds," Jack-O Editor-in-Chief Kevin Goldman '99 wrote in an e-mail message.
He wrote that COSO does not review the contents of issues before publication, but can censor through its funding.
"A withdrawal of funding based upon content does amount to censorship" because of the great difficulty of generating outside funding from advertisements in a rural area such as Hanover, Goldman wrote.
COSO may withdraw funds for reasons other than a publication's content, but "if COSO decides not to meet a funding request simply because they do not approve of what a particular editorial board decided to publish, then it's censorship, plain and simple," he wrote.
Fergenson said that there was no real concern among Uncommon Thread's members about the distribution of the issue -- which is available at the Collis information desk -- since there are so few non-Dartmouth people or minors on campus.
