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STAFF EDITORIAL: President McCulloh did not order opinion piece removed from newspaper

Published: Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Updated: Thursday, April 1, 2010 17:04

Last Friday, a letter, originally submitted to The Gonzaga Bulletin regarding the "Vagina Monologues" was printed on a white sheet of paper under a headline suggesting that Thayne McCulloh ordered The Bulletin not to print the piece. The insert did not make it into every edition but was found at some newspaper stands around campus.

McCulloh did not order the letter writer's piece pulled from the March 26 edition of The Gonzaga Bulletin, nor did any newspaper adviser or school administrator. Instead, the Bulletin staff elected to withhold the submission.

The author submitted a letter after hearing McCulloh speak at Bellarmine Prep High School on March 19 in Tacoma, Wash. The writer paraphrased a quote in the body, which raised questions regarding its validity. There are no recordings of the speech available to confirm the truthfulness of the quotation.

On March 25, McCulloh said the letter was a misrepresentation. He said the remarks were innacurate and did not coincide with his already published stance on the matter. 

His official statement outlining his motivation for banning the Monologues was sent in a campus wide e-mail a day before the speech, on March 18.

A paraphrased quote that was inconsistent with McCulloh's previously stated stance cast doubt on other assertions made in the the author's piece.

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4 comments

Anonymous
Tue May 4 2010 02:21
And also you have to realize that at a private institution, a student publication is subject to more rules and censorship than a public school. it's unfortunate, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Anonymous
Mon May 3 2010 12:52
The point is, you can't quote someone in an opinion piece when there is no way to verify the accuracy of the statement. The Bulletin was covering itself from possibly printing something false.
Anonymous
Sat May 1 2010 04:12
If The Gonzaga Bulletin (or any student publication) is truly a "student publication", should it not reflect the voices of Gonzaga's students? I know the student publications are subject to the Publications Board review, but it should not be suppressed by unnecessary censorship.
Anonymous
Fri Apr 16 2010 14:08
That's funny.

I'm the father of the student that wrote the letter. I still have text message that someone from the Bulletin staff sent his brother on Thursday, March 25th "Hey K---n, I'm not going to be able to run your brother's story. Thayne McCulloh told me to pull it. I'm sorry."

Why not just tell him the staff decided not to run it and avoid the distribution of the letter?

In terms of the letter it's interesting that several of the writer's classmates, many future GU students, interpreted Dr. McCulloh's comments the same way.







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