Cavalier Daily | Student Press Law Center
Cavalier Daily editors at the University of Virginia discovered last month that they had a plagiarist on staff and reported the writer to the school’s Honor Committee. They also published a Sept. 12 editorial that disclosed the writer had at least three published stories with lifted passages. The editorial — it didn’t name the fired staffer — got the newspaper in trouble with school’s Honor Committee. Chairwoman Ann Marie McKenzie claims the piece violated the University’s Standards of Conduct, which prohibits “intentional, reckless, or negligent conduct which obstructs the operations of the Honor or Judiciary Committee, or conduct that violates their rules of confidentiality.” She filed charges against the paper’s managing board.
Cavalier Daily editor-in-chief Jason Ally goes before McKenzie and the University of Judiciary Committee tonight in a closed trial. (Charges against four other staffers were dropped.) An editorial in today’s Cavalier Daily defends the actions of Ally and his colleagues:
It was necessary for the managing board to publish the editorial about recently uncovered plagiarism incidents because the paper strives to remain accountable to readers for the accuracy and authenticity of the content that appears in its pages. By explaining its response to the plagiarism incidents, the managing board aimed to preserve the level of trust it has established with members of the University community and sought to offer reassurance that it was taking the infractions seriously.
Student Press Law Center attorney Adam Goldstein calls this incident a textbook example of censorship. “Punishing students for publishing an editorial? I think it’s laughable that a university entity has the authority to punish truthful information.”
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