By Michaelia Fosses

The first night after its publication, an article about an on-campus rape was cut out of a student newspaper at Notre Dame de Namur University.

Students, reporters, and staff members at the California school woke one morning in January to find that the article had been cut out of about 500 copies of their newspaper The Argonaut. Between 1,200 and 1,400 copies the paper are usually printed for the school.
 
Editor Emeritus Erik Oeverndiek said that he received e-mails from students asking the story not be printed before the paper decided to run the article. A University spokesman has said that the working theory is that friends of the victim, wishing to protect her identity, cut out the story.
 
The victim is not named or described in the article. The sentence that offers the most description of the victim, reads “An NDNU female living in JB was raped in her dorm room over the weekend, police reported.” The only description offered in the article was one of the offender—“an Asian male, with spiky hair and acne.”

Upon hearing of the article removal, student reaction at other universities has been mixed.

“I was surprised at first, but then I agreed with the [Argonaut’s breaking news article] title, 'Copies of The Argonaut vandalized.' It is not the first or the last time that college newspapers will be stolen or have their articles cut out. Not a lot of people know that this is a form of censorship and can lead to disciplinary actions, prosecution, or fines,” said Kristine Ostil, a junior communication major and Editor in Chief of the Chicago Flame, the independent student newspaper of the University of Illinois at Chicago.  

Even if some students saw it as an act of vandalism, others disagreed.  

“To go to that much trouble to cut out one article in a bunch of newspapers just doesn't seem like a simple act of vandalism,” said Jennifer Reid, a senior French major at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  

While some students were concerned that the act was vandalism, still others were concerned with censorship.

“To literally cut out a story from the newspaper is a very blatant form of censorship.  I'm sure the vandals had a reason to do this, whether it was morally driven or they had some sort of personal connection to the story, but it is unreasonable that they would deny the student body access to important information that may heighten awareness and increase safety measures,” said Dana Williams, a junior English major at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Sarah Jeziorski, a senior psychology major at the University of Illinois at Chicago, agreed.  “When crime occurs where I live, I want to know about it; I want to know if I should be looking out for myself and my friends.”

Jason Gulya contributed to the research of this article.