On Friday, a column entitled “The statistics on Dreamers are a nightmare” ran in the Viewpoint section of The Observer, generating both discussion and outrage among readers. We as an Editorial Board understand the responses to this column, but we do not regret publishing it.
We are a nation of people with many opposing viewpoints. To pretend that some of these arguments do not exist on the campuses of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross would be irresponsible of us as an independent newspaper serving these three communities. These opinions exist within our community and censoring them rather than acknowledging and allowing responses to them ultimately does more harm than good.
This Editorial Board represents many different political ideologies, none of which will ever dictate the opinions that members of the tri-campus community choose to express through our Viewpoint section. The column in question met our standards of publication in that the author did not use ad hominem attacks or profanity in his writing, and he included citations to his sources. As long as the column remains relevant and continues to adhere to our standards of publication, for us to not run the column would be political censorship, which we do not practice at The Observer.
Our Viewpoint section seeks to foster and facilitate civil discussion on any number of issues at Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross, and we are committed to continuing to do so in the future. Several members of the tri-campus community have already submitted Letters to the Editor in response to this column, many of which we will publish, as long as they also adhere to our standards of publication.
Observer Editorial: On censorship and discourse
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
