The Johns Hopkins University recently removed hundreds of copies of a conservative, student-run newspaper from dormitories after the quarterly publication?s May cover story questioned the administration?s decision to allow a gay porn director on campus last month.
JHU spokesman Dennis O?Shea said banning the newspaper from the residential halls was not related to the content of the feature piece, but simply in line with school policy.
“It was removed from the residential halls,” O?Shea said Friday. “That?s essentially where the prohibition is. They can distribute, just not in any residential hall. There are so many student publications, and we don?t want the halls to become cluttered.”
O?Shea said the only publication with approval for residential hall distribution is the JHU News-Letter, the official student newspaper of the Homewood campus.
Other student publications, such as The Carrollton Record, O?Shea said, are welcomed at buildings such as Eisenhower Library, and Kreiger and Garland Halls.
However at Wolman Hall, a residential building across from the Charles Street campus, a dozen copies of The Donkey, a publication associated with the student Democratic Club, were still in a newspaper rack in the front lobby Sunday alongside an assortment of pizza and sub shop advertisements.
The five-year-old Carrollton Record, in a story by senior Jered Ede, covered director Chi Chi LaRue?s pro-porn, pro-condom address and Q & A in April, raising concerns student identification was not checked (and therefore minors possibly were admitted), and objecting to the free distribution of pornograhic DVDs afterward.
The Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance, a campus group receiving funding from the university, invited and paid for LaRue?s appearance.
“I had a meeting with [JHU director of residential life] Shelly Finkau right here,” Ede said, gesturing down the hall from the Wolman lobby toward school offices. “And she said it was under her jurisdiction to remove certain speech she deems controversial and that she basically has the right to restrict it within those areas. She didn?t mention anything about a school policy at that time. If there is one, it has never been enforced.”
“We?ve been distributing the newspapers in the dorms like this for five years,” said The Carrollton Record Publisher Dan Simon, a graduate student. “And this is the first time we?ve ever heard of such a policy.”
O?Shea said Finkau received a student complaint, which precipitated the removal of the publication.
Ede and Simon said The Carrollton Record has sought, but does not receive any university funding.
