On Friday, UR College Republicans president senior Anthony Pericolo released a letter that, among other things, insinuated that the Campus Times removed an op-ed — on the cancelation of the Eastman Philharmonia’s China tour — due to its mention of the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs.
“When the Campus Times published an op-ed from an individual who associated the [initial] decision to continue the tour with a tacit endorsement of human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang, it was suspiciously taken down an hour after it was posted,” the letter says.
I should recognize the optics of a piece disappearing from our site soon after it is posted. It was an error on my part to not publicly explain this sooner.
The op-ed was never meant to be published. I had spent some time looking at it but had not fully reviewed it when it was first posted. The piece was posted by an editor, who thought I had approved it. When I saw this had happened about an hour later, I took the article down.
This type of error falls below our standards. Conversations with the editor who posted the piece are being held to see to it that this error does not recur.
After I further reviewed the piece that same day, both myself and the writer agreed it was best not to publish, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
While this is far from an ideal sequence of events — I owe Pericolo thanks for spurring accountability — I reject the notion that we somehow succumbed to outside pressure to take this article down. While it fits nicely into the letter’s narrative, it’s simply not the case.
At the Campus Times, we provide you with the most accurate and responsible student journalism possible. Unfortunately, errors sometimes happen. When they do, we fix them, and continue doing our best.
