This past week, The Fordham Ram published “Turn Right” by Brianna Lyman. This opinion article attracted a great deal of controversy due to its conservative stance and radical, hypothetical solution to the issue of illegal immigration. In addition, a few factual errors in the article evaded the editing process at The Fordham Ram.
These errors have been acknowledged by our staff and steps have been taken to ensure a similar mistake does not occur again.
However, despite these issues, The Fordham Ram still stands by publishing this writer’s opinion in our paper.
We at The Fordham Ram would like to address the criticism and explain exactly why we support the First Amendment right to freedom of speech on our opinion pages.
As the school’s official newspaper, The Fordham Ram has an obligation to offer op-ed space to a all members of the Fordham community, even those expressing unpopular views in the eyes of the majority of the student body.
It is an American tradition to publish unpopular opinions, stretching back to the very first newspaper in the American colonies in 1690. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were enshrined in our Bill of Rights specifically to strengthen our country by allowing free expression.
The Fordham Ram upholds centuries of American tradition when we support the First Amendment by publishing articles that cause a debate.
Given the huge amounts of web traffic generated by these recent conservative op-ed pieces, such as “Check Your Liberal Privilege” by Ryan Quinn (Dec. 7, 2016), which has generated about 24,000 clicks on our website to date, we can say that The Fordham Ram has succeeded in increasing political dialogue on campus.
The student body at Fordham is largely liberal, so our newspaper mostly publishes liberal opinion articles.
Conservative Fordham students, however, should have equal opportunity to share their views, despite being a minority on campus.
The Fordham Ram accepts and will continue to accept opinion articles from everyone — students, faculty, alumni, administrators and anyone with a campus connection. If Fordham students or other readers are unhappy with opinion articles published in The Fordham Ram, we encourage them to submit op-ed pieces with counter-arguments or letters to the editor.
The Fordham Ram is also committed to creating a safe space for members of the community to express their views.
At times, the reactions of students to some recent articles on our website and social media have made the writers feel as if they are under personal attack.
Name calling and online bullying do not foster a forum that encourages productive conversation. We call upon the student body to be more civil and open themselves up to constructive discussion.
As one of your staff writers, this is disappointing to hear from the editors. It’s not about “unpopular” opinions. It’s actually great to give a platform for underrepresented voices, and I’d like to think Fordham is diverse enough that our community is well-aware that different viewpoints exist. What is concerning is this recent trend of inflammatory op-eds that are based entirely on falsehoods, not fact-checked or verified in any capacity, and clearly intended to stir controversy and get people talking about the Ram. I get it, it is sometimes hard to get students to care about the good journalism in the newspaper – but this is not the solution. As the official university paper, the Ram should always verify information and provide a platform for discussion of different perspectives – based in and supported by facts. These op-eds do not encourage discussion, they only spark more anger and division within our community and in the worst cases, make certain demographics feel unsafe when the official school news source gives a platform for blatantly discriminatory statements. You say the comments are bullying the authors? Yes they can get pretty nasty, so you should not put a writer in that position unless they are prepared to defend their statements with facts instead of whining about “liberals” and making “triggered” jokes. If the Ram wants to turn into a tabloid, then by all means become one.
Dear Ram,
You do realize that no one, even liberals, have a problem with conservatives having the right to free speech? However, liberals (and conservatives) have a problem with blatantly racist and xenophobic language. (Also, journalists, regardless of ideology, have a problem with factually incorrect pieces). Those articles mentioned were badly written. Trust me, a well written and factually correct conservative article would not catch as much flack.
Also, why do you claim that Fordham is so liberal? Even if there are more liberals, the conservatives are still a sizable number considering every other person I met on this campus was a Conservative Republican. Moreover, how come your paper is so keen on “protecting” conservative speech, even though it’s not under attack? Meanwhile, those same conservative opinions have problems with liberal speech. I mean, your paper literally published an opinion where a writer criticized Colin Kaepernick’s protest. It seems that conservatives want a safe space devoid of anything remotely liberal.
My main point though, is that there’s a difference between providing a space for conservative speech and providing a platform for bigotry. Publishing a conservative opinion is allowing for a different point of view to be shared. Publishing a bigoted and factually incorrect opinion validates that bigotry. And that validation has real life consequences. If you don’t think so, then please question why Steve Bannon, who’s own easily searchable record paints him as a neo-nazi, is able to be in such a high position in our government. Seriously, Ram staff, if you’re journalists dedicated to integrity, this shouldn’t be that difficult of a concept to grasp.
Overall, please consider why Breitbart isn’t considered real news when the New York Times is. Because if you continue to publish hate speech under the guise of conservative free speech, you’ll soon be known as Fordham’s “alternative-fact” journal of record.
Sincerely,
Fordham Alum
P.S. Yes, online clicks are exciting but let’s not sacrifice journalistic integrity for the sake of online popularity. News flash, by publishing those pieces, you’re not jumpstarting a conversation. You’re just telling students of color, immigrant students, etc, that they are not welcomed on this campus. And there is nothing Jesuit about that.
Lol “stop cyberbullying me because im an apologist for fascism!!!” when u learn to stop disrespecting nonwhite people then maybe i’ll respect ur opinion sweaty :))))