Dear Mr. President,
You are the president of the university I have been a fan of since birth. You are the president of the university I have been a student at since August. And you are a president who is suing the newspaper for which I now work.
Last year, you allowed a professor with sexual assault allegations against him to resign with continued pay. To make a long and sufficiently covered story short, the student newspaper (which is independently run) acquired the records of the situation (against your wishes but with the approval of the Kentucky Attorney General) and reported on it. The newspaper redacted all names, as the press almost always does in these situations. You then filed a lawsuit against the newspaper.
And a few days ago, you sent an email to the entire university campus defending your position in the lawsuit. While many (probably most) students did not read your lengthy email, I did.
Within that email, you blamed the newspaper for a decline in reports of sexual assaults. You said that victims were scared to report what had happened to them because they were scared it would end up in the paper.
First of all, Mr. President, I would like to express my frustration that you used your power as president to give the students of the university a one-sided, biased report of the lawsuit. The newspaper does not have the power to email every single student. The newspaper should not and does not report in a biased way. (There was an editorial piece defending the newspaper, but it was printed opposite another editorial in support of the president.)
Mr. President, I think you abused your power. Perhaps you should use your emailing list to send out the newspaper's defensive editorial to every student.
Secondly, Mr. President, I cannot even begin to speak for the victims in this situation because I am not in their situation. You, however, have allowed yourself to speak for them, and not only them but a larger community of sexual assault victims.
Anyway, as an outsider looking in to the situation, I find it scary that a newspaper wouldn't report on a sexual assault case. I especially find it scary that a newspaper wouldn't report on a sexual assault case because the university didn't want it reported. Because you, Mr. President, clearly did not want this case reported.
You say it was to protect the victims. But I think a great start to protecting victims is to keep them from becoming victims, yet this professor was allowed to resign without his record being marred. That just doesn't make sense to me, Mr. President. How can not reporting a sexual assaulter protect anyone from sexual assault?
Lastly, Mr. President, I would like to talk about the purpose of journalism. One of the main purposes of journalism is to be a watchdog against the people in power, whether it be the president of the United States (does Watergate ring a bell?) or against the president of a university. Mr. President, journalists have an obligation to tell the truth, and the truth does not always boost someone's reputation.
So, Mr. President, I also don't have the power to send an email to every student on campus. I don't even have the power to make you read this. But I do have the power to support the newspaper for telling the truth.
Sincerely,
A student at your university
