Collegiate Press Roundup

 We present our regular review of selected student journalists and editors.   This week, they take on freedom of the press, new forms of hate speech, the utility of the death penalty and the need for ideological diversity on campus.

1. A freshman political scientist writing in USC’s Daily Trojan fears that the US military operation in Libya is an expensive dead end.
2. An editorialist in the Connecticut College Voice weighs the dilemma of maintaining a secure campus while avoiding the “pseudo police state” found at many larger schools.
3. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen in America, and a columnist for the Kansas State Collegian thinks that the GOP’s budgetary cuts will make it still worse.
4. A political analyst for the Smith College Sophian argues that psychological profiling of potential dictators may be useful for future foreign policy calculations.
5. With its reporter banned from covering a local trial involving four football players, the Auburn Plainsman decides to go to the mat on behalf of press freedom.
6. Although people may use the word “retarded” in various ways, a regular for the Oklahoma Daily thinks that it is a form of “hate speech” that should no longer be spoken.
7. Brown University is badly in need of some ideological diversity, and a staffer for the Daly Herald explains how it can liven up an otherwise stifling liberal orthodoxy.
8. The death penalty has been widely abolished elsewhere and faces stiff opposition in the United States as well. But a writer for the Emory Wheel argues that it is an effective and justifiable law enforcement measure.
9. A sports columnist for LSU’s Daily Reveille thinks that the school’s fans have been given an undeserved bum rap in recent media stories.
10. Republicans, Democrats, Red or Blue? Same thing, says an exasperated political commentator for the Daily Illini.
11. The editors of the Iowa State Daily think that their university’s designated “free speech” zones may unfortunately be a hindrance to free speech.
12. An op ed regular for The Dartmouth sighs at the comfortable, conformist complacency of his undergraduate peers who seldom, if ever, experience the robust challenge of genuine intellectual debate on campus.