The Daily Cal, the official student newspaper of the University of California, Berkeley, is refusing to publish a conservative opinion piece regarding students benefitting from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The student author, Naweed Tahmas, is the external vice president of the Berkeley College Republicans and claims that the Daily Cal even commissioned his piece.
The paper took issue with a few of Tahmas’ claims, such as when student groups on campus wave the Mexican flag, it shows a loyalty to their homeland over the United States. According to the Daily Cal, “waving the Mexican flag is not illegal” and therefore Tahmas’ point is moot.
In the op-ed submission, Tahmas also claims that “poverty and violence [is] characteristic of most of the world outside the West” to which the Daily Cal claims is untrue and therefore unpublishable.
Messages, obtained by Red Alert Politics, show student paper columnist Dohee Kim soliciting Tahmas to write the op-ed and her frequently checking in on its production status.
“Hi… DailyCal is interested in a DACA op-ed for next week if you can submit one by Sunday!” Kim wrote to Tahmas.
The next day, she follows up, “Also, I just wanted to give a friendly reminder that a draft by Sat night/Sun morning latest would be appreciated. Thanks so much!”
On Saturday, Kim messages Tahmas again.
“Hi! How is the draft coming? Just wanted to check in,” she writes. After Tahmas tells Kim he will send a draft over Sunday morning, she responds, “Awesome. Thanks so much for doing this, we will be able to publish by Tuesday!”
It was after these messages that Tahmas received the news that the Daily Cal would not publish his article on the grounds that he makes assumptions unpublishable by the paper.
According to their website, the Daily Cal does not guarantee that every submission will be published.
Tahmas, however, believes that the Daily Cal is selectively enforcing its standards.
“The school newspaper requested I write an op-ed on DACA, and then gets offended and decides not to publish it. They hide behind minor issues with the op-ed as a curtain to the real reasons as to why they refuse to publish it. Indeed, this is the same school newspaper that published op-eds by the Berkeley Antifa and other anarchists,” Tahmas told Red Alert Politics.
Kim did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication, but Karim Doumar, editor-in-chief of the Daily Cal, directed Red Alert Politics to the Daily Cal’s submission guidelines which read in part:
Op-eds that are deemed libelous, racist, sexist, homophobic or highly offensive in any other manner will not print. Content that does not meet our fact-checking standards will also not print. All content publishes at the discretion of the opinion editor. We reserve the right to edit all material in accordance with our editorial standards.
Just this month, the Daily Cal published opinion pieces titled, “UC Berkeley fails to support undocumented student Luis Mora in time of need” and “Trump’s hate rhetoric affects the lives of people of color.”
