more on On Kansas State -- Black and White and Mad All Over

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Gerry Faulhaber <gerry-faulhaber () mchsi com>
Date: July 30, 2004 10:48:05 PM EDT
To: Tom Davis <tdavis () kc rr com>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: Your IP post

Thanks for yor thoughtful response.  I wish the original post had been 
as thoughtful and complete, and I certainly would have responded 
differently.
 
Prof. Gerald Faulhaber
 
----- Original Message -----
 From: Tom Davis
To: gerry-faulhaber () mchsi com
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 11:12 PM
Subject: Your IP post

Dear Mr.. Faulhaber:
 
Saw your IP post.  My son attends KSU, so I've followed this story.  
First, the Student Press Law Center is an independent group in VA, not 
in any way connected with KSU.  The Chronicle of Higher Ed has covered 
this story very well.  Ron Johnson was given an exemplary job review 
just 2-3 months before he was sacked.  See below.  President Wefald 
should be ashamed of himself to sponsor this argument in court.  Tom 
Davis
 

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From the issue dated July 2, 2004

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http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i43/43a01001.htm

Black and White and Mad All Over
The ouster of Kansas State U.'s newspaper director has 
college-journalism advisers seeing red

By ERIC HOOVER


Manhattan, Kan.

This spring Kansas State University published a job listing for an 
interim director of student publications, inviting applicants who have 
a master's degree in journalism or a related field and the ability to 
"work well with students."

An ability to please all of the readers all of the time was not on that 
list of requirements. But campus-media directors across the nation say 
it might as well have been.

In May Kansas State ousted its longtime journalism adviser, Ron 
Johnson, who had received a shining evaluation just two months earlier. 
He contends that administrators' dissatisfaction with the coverage of 
minority students in the student-run newspaper, the Collegian, was what 
led to his dismissal. University officials maintain that it was a 
personnel decision, not a question of content.

Mr. Johnson's removal is the latest flare-up in a continuing clash over 
the role of collegiate newspaper advisers, who walk one of the 
narrowest planks in academe.

Part teachers, part collaborators, part critics, advisers generally 
lack the protections of mainstream faculty members, yet receive more 
scrutiny. Because student newspapers are flash points for campus 
tensions over many issues, media advisers often take heat -- and get 
fired -- for decisions made by the student journalists they oversee but 
do not control.

In April, for example, the trustees of Barton County Community College, 
in Kansas, decided not to renew the contract of the campus newspaper's 
adviser, Jennifer Schartz, after she had refused to stop the paper from 
publishing a letter critical of the basketball coach. And in May, 
Vincennes University reassigned its adviser, Michael Mullen, who says 
the move was an attempt to silence the student newspaper, which had 
published articles critical of the administration last semester. 
(Officials of both colleges deny that the decisions were related to 
news coverage).

More than other recent controversies, however, Mr. Johnson's dismissal 
at Kansas State jolted the tight-knit ranks of media advisers. A 
soft-spoken leader in the field, he had advised the Collegian for 15 
years, a time during which the paper racked up many awards, including 
one in March as best broadsheet daily in a national competition of 
college newspapers. If such a decorated veteran could not keep his job, 
was any adviser safe?

In 1998, in response to a growing number of adviser-administrator 
confrontations, the College Media Advisers, a national organization 
representing journalism instructors, established an "Adviser Advocate 
Policy," which allows members to call on trained advocates for help in 
resolving dispute with colleges.

Members of the group met with Kansas State officials this spring in an 
effort to win Mr. Johnson's reinstatement. When that failed, the group 
voted to censure the university, calling it "oppressive of students' 
rights to free expression and hostile toward those professionals it 
employs to advise the student press."

"I'm starting to worry that we're in an atmosphere of less tolerance," 
says Kathy Lawrence, the group's president, who is director of student 
media at the University of Texas at Austin. "If an adviser can be 
removed for the content of a student newspaper -- which they're not 
supposed to control -- then we know there's a real serious problem 
there, and a real serious problem for advisers in general."

'Turn Them Loose'

Ron Johnson understood the pressures of the profession when he stepped 
into it two decades ago, back when he had a lot more hair and a 
hankering for a job where the hours are as different as each day's 
news.

After receiving a master's degree in journalism from the University of 
Kansas in 1982, he taught high-school English for two years and worked 
as a special-projects writer at the Wichita Eagle-Beacon for another 
year. Then, in 1985, he traded his byline for a chance to teach 
students who were still too young to drink how to break news and make 
deadlines.

 He became adviser to the student newspaper at his alma mater, Fort 
Hays State University. Four years later he signed on as Kansas State's 
director of student publications to oversee production of the 
Collegian, which comes out Monday through Friday, with a circulation of 
11,000, as well as of the university's yearbook, the  Royal Purple, and 
the campus telephone directory.

Mr. Johnson had a dual appointment, serving both as director of Student 
Publications Inc., the nonprofit corporation that publishes the 
newspaper, and as an assistant professor not on the tenure track, in 
the university's A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass 
Communications.

He began each day by writing critiques of the previous day's issue of 
the Collegian. Many nights ended with telephone calls from editors 
seeking his advice. Students recall that when he took them aside to 
criticize their work, he would preface his remarks by saying, "I love 
you, but ...."

Some nights Mr. Johnson would drop by the newspaper's office, in Kedzie 
Hall, with plates of warm chocolate-chip cookies. When high winds from 
a tornado ripped a hole in the roof of the building, in the summer of 
1993, he helped students salvage 6,000 copies of the newspaper from a 
fast-flooding basement.

But he was hands-off about the content of the newspaper. As for many 
other advisers, the job required him to lead young journalists without 
giving them orders on what to report and write. At public colleges, 
like Kansas State, the First Amendment prevents advisers from 
interfering with media content because that would be tantamount to the 
state's taking action to restrict free speech. "Legally speaking, an 
adviser stands in the same shoes as a university president," says Mike 
Hiestand, a lawyer based in Bellingham, Wash., who specializes in 
student-media cases. "Once the adviser imposes some sort of directive 
on editorial content, there's going to be a problem."

Mr. Johnson believes that journalism is a practice best learned by 
students who are free to make mistakes. "You're giving advice, but 
you're not pulling strings," he says of the adviser's role. "You train 
'em and you turn them loose."

Tempest on a T-Shirt

Mr. Johnson's troubles began in February, following the 27th annual Big 
12 Conference on Black Student Government, which drew more than 1,000 
visiting students to Kansas State's campus. Natalie Rolfe, president of 
the campus Black Student Union at the time, says members became upset 
when the Collegian failed to cover any of the conference's events, most 
of which had taken place in the student union, just across from the 
building housing the newspaper's office.

Complaints among minority students about the Collegian's coverage of 
diversity issues predated Ms. Rolfe's arrival at Kansas State, where 3 
percent of the student population is black. But the lack of reporting 
on the conference, which was held during Black History Month, prompted 
her to act.

Ms. Rolfe helped organize two forums, on February 26 and March 2, at 
which administrators, faculty members, and student leaders of campus 
groups discussed their concerns about the Collegian with its editors. 
Mr. Johnson attended the second meeting. A lack of diversity on the 
newspaper was among their criticisms: The Collegian had no black staff 
members last semester.

Some students demanded to know why the newspaper had given more 
coverage to a campus rodeo this spring than to a gathering of black 
student leaders.

"Every student wants to feel like they have a voice in the newspaper," 
says Ms. Rolfe, who graduated in May with a degree in journalism and 
mass communications. "We were not trying to take away anybody's First 
Amendment rights, but to put in a system to make sure the paper's more 
friendly to the campus."

After the editors apologized -- both at the forums and in print -- for 
not covering the conference, Mr. Johnson became the target of Ms. 
Rolfe's continuing campaign. Her thinking was that students, who come 
and go, were not solely to blame for what she describes as the 
Collegian's long-term problems, and that a "regime change" was 
necessary.

So she ordered dozens of orange T-shirts with a message on the front 
-- "W.W.R.G.?," for "When Will Ron Go?" On April 7, she and about 50 
other students donned the T-shirts and marched through the campus to 
call for Mr. Johnson's resignation.

"He wasn't fixing anything," Ms. Rolfe says.

The students who challenged Mr. Johnson had the support of one of 
Kansas State's top administrators, Myra Gordon, the associate provost 
for diversity and dual-career development. Ms. Rolfe says that when she 
first discussed her plans to hold the forums about the Collegian with 
Ms. Gordon, the administrator told her, "I'm backing you all the way."

Ms. Gordon, who works regularly with students, stated publicly on at 
least one occasion that Mr. Johnson should be removed from his job. In 
late April, she told the Collegian that "nothing less than an enduring 
solution" would defuse frustrations with the newspaper's coverage.

Ms. Gordon is a former associate dean at Virginia Tech, where she led a 
controversial initiative in 1999 to diversify the faculty through 
revamped hiring procedures that were designed to bring in more female 
and minority professors (The Chronicle, July 12, 2002).

This spring some members of the Collegian's staff say they were stung 
by what they describe as the associate provost's insinuations that they 
-- and Mr. Johnson -- were racist. Ms. Gordon declined The Chronicle's, 
request for a telephone interview. After saying she would consider 
answering only written questions, she did not respond to questions sent 
to her via e-mail.

'A Comprehensive Review'

In early April, the complaints about Mr. Johnson were buzzing in the 
ears of Todd F. Simon, director of Kansas State's journalism school, 
who had overseen Mr. Johnson in his roles as both media adviser and 
assistant professor.

If Mr. Simon had concerns about the adviser, though, they had not shown 
up in recent job reviews. In a March 15 evaluation, for instance, the 
director concluded that Mr. Johnson "exceeds expectations" and deemed 
his three-year performance "meritorious."

But in a May 7 letter to Stephen E. White, dean of the college of arts 
and sciences, Mr. Simon recommended that Mr. Johnson not be reappointed 
as adviser to the newspaper or to his teaching position.

 Mr. Simon's letter followed a "content analysis" in which he attempted 
to quantify the weaknesses of the Collegian by comparing it with six 
other college newspapers. His conclusion: The Kansas State newspaper 
"ranked low in many measures of news coverage," including stories with 
a campus focus and in the number of sources per article.

He noted that the award the Collegian won in March was based on a 
single day's newspaper, which, he wrote, was "not representative of a 
typical issue." (His letter does not mention that the newspaper 
recently won separate awards that were based on multiple issues.) Mr. 
Simon wrote that although the recent complaints about the Collegian's 
coverage of diversity were not the basis of his recommendation, the 
"comprehensive review would not have occurred without the controversy 
having arisen."

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Simon explains that previously 
he had not noticed what he describes as serious problems with the 
Collegian, because he had been only "a casual reader" of the newspaper.

He contends that Mr. Johnson's concept of an adviser's role -- teaching 
by sharing critiques after the fact -- is too narrow. In the director's 
view, advisers should not "tell people, 'Go cover the following five 
stories,' but they build up over time a response from students that 
[the adviser] expects us to cover X, Y, and Z."

Mr. Simon, himself a longtime advocate of student-press freedom who 
once threatened to sue on behalf of the Collegian when the student 
government attempted to exercise control over the newspaper, rejects 
accusations that he has trampled on First Amendment rights.

His concerns about Mr. Johnson, he says, were related not only to 
content but also to conduct. In his letter to the dean, he wrote that 
"dozens of individuals have offered opinions that are consistent in 
their portrayal of Johnson as antagonistic, disrespectful, adversarial, 
and distrustful. ..." Mr. Simon declined to offer more specifics in an 
interview but insists that his findings were sound. "While this is a 
dicey situation," he says, "I haven't stepped over the line."

A 'Feeling of Pride'

Katie Lane, a senior who was editor in chief of the Collegian last 
semester, contends that Mr. Simon did go too far. She does not 
understand why the journalism school's director, who consulted with 
several student groups about Mr. Johnson this spring, did not seek the 
opinions of the newspaper's staff members, many of whom rave about him.

Although she knew of a few students who did not like Mr. Johnson's 
teaching style, she says, the vast majority supported him, as well as 
his light advising touch. "When you walked into that newsroom, you knew 
it was your paper," she says. "The feeling of pride in that is just 
unbelievable."

Ms. Lane says the Collegian "dropped the ball" by not covering the 
black-leadership conference, which she attributes to an oversight by 
staff members. But, she adds, the newspaper has responded to the 
criticism by developing a beat system and planning additional diversity 
training.

Mark Witherspoon, editorial adviser at Iowa State University's student 
newspaper, recently met with Kansas State officials to discuss Mr. 
Johnson's case on behalf of the College Media Advisers. In addition to 
lobbying for Mr. Johnson's reinstatement as adviser, the group is also 
suggesting ways to improve the relationship between the university and 
the newspaper.

Mr. Witherspoon sees some problems at Kansas State as structural. Under 
the newspaper's current setup, for instance, Mr. Simon, an 
administrator, is also chairman of the publications board, which is 
supposed to function independently of the university. "There's some 
intermingling there," Mr. Witherspoon says. "Papers become financially 
independent so they can avoid this."

Amid criticism from students and alumni who support Mr. Johnson, the 
university's president, Jon Wefald, recently signed a "declaration of 
commitment" to the freedom of its student press, affirming that the 
university would "never order or pressure an adviser to coerce a 
student staff's editorial decisions."

Kansas State has temporarily shelved its search for an adviser after 
the newspaper's governing board passed a resolution condemning Mr. 
Johnson's removal, which occurred without its consent. Linda Puntney, 
who was assistant director of student publications, has been named 
acting director.

Ms. Puntney, who could not be reached for comment, told the Student 
Press Law Center, a watchdog group, that she hoped the university would 
reinstate Mr. Johnson. If his removal "is, in fact, a content-related 
issue, we are in deep trouble at Kansas State University," she said. 
"If it is not a content issue, I'd like to know more about what it is."

High Expectations

On a Thursday afternoon in June, Mr. Johnson's campus office is almost 
empty. Although he is no longer the newspaper's adviser, a member of 
the Collegian's summer staff drops in anyway to ask his advice on 
getting an evasive source to talk. "What do you think would happen," 
the student asks, "if I just knocked on his door?"

Mr. Johnson lets the question linger. Clearly the student has decided 
to go find out for himself.

For now, Mr. Johnson plans to remain at Kansas State. Mr. White, the 
arts-and-sciences dean, moved him into a full-time teaching position in 
the journalism school. Mr. White says that despite his concerns about 
the professor's "interpersonal relationships with different groups," 
which he declines to describe, he is confident that Mr. Johnson is "a 
very effective teacher."

Mr. Johnson says some of students' frustration with the Collegian is 
inevitable. On a large campus, he argues, a newspaper cannot possibly 
cover every group's event or every speaker who visits. That said, he 
agrees that the newspaper's failure to report on the black-leadership 
conference was a mistake. He also concedes that the Collegian could 
have done a better job covering race issues in general and in 
recruiting a more-diverse staff.

"I don't fault readers for having high expectations," he says.

But he does fault the university for not giving him the opportunity to 
help students improve the newspaper or to respond to the 
"interpersonal" issues to which Mr. White refers. Mr. Johnson insists 
that he does not know what those issues are. "If these were problems," 
he says, "how come I was only hearing about it now?"

Mr. Simon, director of the journalism school, told The Chronicle that 
giving Mr. Johnson another chance "wouldn't have led to the desired 
result."

To the professor, that is further evidence that he is a casualty of 
what he describes as the growing "customer-service mentality" of higher 
education, in which campus controversies require scapegoats. "I have 
every reason to believe the administration understands the role of 
adviser," he says. "It's just that they're not accepting it."

Across the hall from his office, the Collegian's newsroom is silent, 
but the ceiling has plenty to say. For decades graduating students have 
scribbled messages and quotations on the tiles.

Mr. Johnson meanders, rattling off students' names as he squints up. 
"That's good," he says, pointing at one inscription: "Fight fires with 
words. Words are hotter than flames."

But none of the messages fits the mood better than the one that a 
student wrote 10 years ago in black ink. "Newspapers," it reads, "will 
always break your heart."

http://chronicle.com
Section: The Faculty
Volume 50, Issue 43, Page A10


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