November 24, 2007

The Student and the Solomon Amendment

Yesterday, I wrote this post about Amherst’s announcement that it would allow military recruiters on campus without restriction in compliance with federal law.

At the end of that post, I highlighted an article from the Amherst Student which noted that the College could face fines of $600 million by failing to comply with federal law. While I briefly remarked that such a number was absurd, I moved on to make other points.

I just received the November 14 edition of the Student (not yet available online, as usual), and they correct the error, sort of. On the front page of the paper this paragraph appeared over a reprint of the statement by Tony Marx I discussed yesterday.

Editor’s note: The article “Faculty Backs Enviro-Studies” in last week’s issue incorrectly stated that the College will continue its long-held policy of requiring military recruiters to participate in public forums explaining “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” in order to recruit on campus. However, in lieu of a recent Supreme Court decision that would withhold roughly $6 million in federal funds from Amherst if it continued its policy, the College will now allow recruiters on campus, unconditionally.

So the number is $6 million, which makes much more sense.

However, the editor’s statement that the reporting in the November 7 article was inaacurate means that Student publisher Suvayu Pant ‘09 penned an article that borders on a complete fabrication of President Marx’s comments. That is well below the standards of any student newspaper, particularly ours. At the same time, it’s hard to believe, despite the $600 million error, that any reporter would get the facts so wrong. As far as I know, no further corrections to Pant’s article, which touched on a variety of topics, were made.

Perhaps the editors of the Student came to their conclusion after reporting by Casey Brennan ‘11 and Sam Huneke ‘11 revealed that the College’s “Committee of Six” had made the decision reflected in Marx’s official statement a week before the faculty meeting that was the subject of Pant’s article. In an article entitled “Dean Outlines New Policy on Military,” Dean of Students Ben Lieber announced the Committee of Six decision in the context of a discussion on the history of military recruiting on campus.

To be clear, I agree with the position the College ultimately took on the issue, even if others, including perhaps President Marx, were not on the same page during different stages of the discussion. However, the performance of the Amherst Student was not acceptable in reporting this important event. If it is true that Pant’s article was that inaccurate, the editors of the paper need to take action and explain how an article printed on the pages they review every week could be that far from the truth.

Dave Nardolillo '98 | November 24, 2007 03:01 PM | Administration | Publications

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