Human Rights at American University

The University alleged that it could not afford to subsidize a student newspaper in 2013. The print edition was cut from being a weekly to two print editions a semester. The issue was money, they said. Really. An organization with a budget of over $600 million could not afford to provide $50,000 to keep the campus newspaper running. How many journalists out there began their careers at the college newspaper? How many stories about inflated budgets made university administrators uncomfortable over the years?

But now, AU administrators are much more comfortable. Students won’t see headlines about tuition increases in newspapers in the lobbies of their residence halls. Instead they will have to go online and search the Eagle for information. Would the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal have as much influence if they only existed online?

Today’s online Eagle has a fraction of the influence it had as a weekly print publication. See this link for details about the demise of the Eagle.

At a school that sells so many courses on politics, you might think that American University would encourage students to post their political opinions on campus. But this is not the case. A student who attaches a flyer to a bulletin board in the Mary Graydon Center, or tapes or tacks a flyer to a tree will see it removed in less than an hour in most cases. The university does not have a single kiosk like the one below where students’ opinions can be seen.