The Aquinas, a student run newspaper at Scranton University was shut down last week after releasing an April Fools’ Day Issue which parodied The Hoya.
The newspaper was renamed The Hoya for the issue and contained stories with fake authors that made fun of college administrators and sensitive religious and political issues.
According to the Associated Press, the paper chose to parody The Hoya because Rev. Scott Pilarz S.J., President of the University of Scranton since September, is a former Georgetown professor. Pilarz left Georgetown last year to assume his new position at Scranton, a Jesuit school in Pennsylvania.
Josh Zumbrun (SFS ‘05), Editor-in-Chief of The Hoya described being parodied by The Aquinas as “a little bit of an honor.”
One feature in the issue showed an MTV style Celebrity Death Match between Pilarz and the former university president while both wore their clerical collars. Another article described a priest who was caught “fooling around” with a woman during a screening of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
The Scranton publications board, which is comprised of nine members of the faculty, staff, students and non-university advisors, ruled that the issue was offensive and moved to suspend further publication of The Aquinas.
On April 2 the administration removed the issue from circulation, fired Sean Matthews, editor-in-chief of the paper, and changed the locks to The Aquinas’ office .
Matthew’s mother took issue with the school’s decision to fire her son. “I’m not in favor of curtailing anybody’s freedom of speech, so I think the school was wrong,” she said.
Timothy Gabrielli, Scranton Student Government President, said that the April 1st issue magnified the problems that the university community has had with the paper all year. “We fully support the decision of the publications board and the administration to suspend temporarily the publication of The Aquinas because of the complaints we received all year long regarding the professionalism and journalistic quality of The Aquinas,” he said. In a letter to the Vice President for Student Affairs on April 2, he called the paper continuously offensive, potentially libelous and misrepresentative of the University of Scranton community.
While closures of student papers often prompt criticism about a clamp down on free speech, Gabrielli said that faculty and students seem to be generally in favor the university’s decision. He added that he had spoken to a small number of students who opposed the paper’s closing.
The Aquinas will not be permitted to publish again until it has written a code of ethics, which will have to be reviewed by the university before the paper is allowed to reopen. Gerald Zoboski, Director of Public Relations at Scranton added that the university hoped The Aquinas would resume publishing before the end of the semester.
As a private university, Scranton, is not required to guarantee the first amendment rights to its student media. Zoboski said that the university respects the rights of free speech on campus, but must also remain loyal to its Jesuit identity. “Because we are a Catholic and Jesuit university we call upon our students to balance their personal freedom with responsibility to our community, even when they are working on the student newspaper”, said Zoboski.
