VIRGINIA — The acting president of HamptonUniversity has adopted new policies that ensure the free-press rights of theschool’s student newspaper.The decision to adopt the policies was anabout-face for President JoAnn Haysbert, who confiscated the entire press run ofthe Oct. 22 edition of The Script in a dispute with editors overeditorial control.Editors and school officials hope the new policieswill end a contentious battle between the students and Haysbert and between theschool and national journalism groups, which attacked the school and even pulledfunding from it for censoring the newspaper.”I was very happy with theresults,” said Talia Buford, editor of The Script. “We were able to gaineditorial control, and that’s what is most important. Now, we have the frameworkin place to make The Script better.”Haysbert accepted therecommendations of a task force created to determine the role of the studentnewspaper at the private university in Hampton, Va. The 11-member task force,comprised predominately of faculty and students with a journalism background,met over six weeks last fall and recommended that:
Read previous coverage
- Editors group pulls funding from Hampton U. after president seized papers News Flash, 11/12/2003
- Hampton U. president limits authority, changes makeup of newspaper task force News Flash, 10/31/2003
- Va. university seizes newspapers after editors refused to run letter on front page News Flash, 10/27/2003