INDIANA — Atleast 600 copies of Butler University’s TheButler Collegian were dumped sometime between Wednesday and Thursday.
CollegianEditor-in-Chief Hayleigh Colombo said the paper printed 2,600 copies this week,and the total loss from the theft — including printing, wages and advertising —was $653.31.
Colombo said the most controversial story in the paper wason the campus’ Phi Kappa Psi chapter, which is being investigated for analleged assault. University spokesman Marc Allan, however, said the issue hadat least three other controversial stories.
Allan said the issue featured stories on core curriculumfunding, students wait-listed for housing and an editorial on Trayvon Martin.Because there were so many potentially upsetting stories, he said no one can becertain which one sparked the dumping.
Collegian staffmembers were alerted to suspiciously empty racks Thursday. Upon investigation,Colombo said, they found newspapers in trash cans.
The Collegianfiled a police report Thursday.
Detective Bruce Allee said police have no leads. There areno security cameras in that area, and he said searching for fingerprints wouldbe pointless because of the high traffic on campus.
“We take it seriously,” Allee added. “We just don’t havemuch to go on.”
Allee said he is “99 percent sure” it was a student. If theculprit were found, he said, the thief would be referred to the university’sstudent disciplinary system.
Members of Phi Kappa Psi could not be reached for comment.
Student Press Law Center Attorney Advocate Adam Goldsteinsaid the idea of throwing away papers to conceal a story is fundamentallymisguided.
“By trying to stop people from seeing the story,” he said,“you’re getting more people to see it. If not for your actions, we wouldn’t evenknow about, so we certainly wouldn’t be writing about it.”