Collegiate Press Roundup 8-18-10

We resume our regular sampling of student journalists and editors, who are staying on the job through the summer. This week’s selections assess a federal judge’s ruling against California’s Proposition 8, missing the point about a proposed mosque in New York city and useless psychology surveys from Michigan. 

1. Although UCLA is one of the most gay-friendly campuses in the country, an op-ed writer in the Daily Bruin argues that there’s still a lot of work to be done. Not just tolerance, but acceptance should be the goal of campus policies.
2. A staffer for the Harvard Crimson describes his experience in a small Parisian suburban town with a lingering sense of its dark past.
3. A guest columnist for The Dartmouth wishes that the uproar over the proposed Ground Zero mosque in New York would go away. It’s just a lot of political grandstanding and opportunism that’s deflecting attention from more substantive issues such as the sinking economy and high unemployment.
4. In the Daily Kansan, an editorialist applauds Kansas governor Mark Parkinson’s decision not to enforce an archaic and encumbering liquor regulation.
5. The editors of UC Berkeley’s Daily Californian salute a federal judge’s ruling against California’s Proposition 8 as a major step forward toward marriage equality, but note that it’s not time for complacency. A lively discussion follows in the comments thread.
6. A writer for the Indiana Daily Student agrees, but wants much more than marriage equality. Let’s keep going, he argues, and get rid of marriage altogether, as Plato wisely proposed long ago.
7. As they anticipate the onset of the Fall semester, the editors of the Daily Iowan offer some reflections on the big news stories which dominated the summer months.
8. From somewhere on the road, a columnist for the Stanford Daily just had to send in an iphone piece to explain why so many psychology studies – especially if they come from Michigan – drive him simply nuts.
9. The editor-in-chief of the Crimson White at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa explains to incoming freshmen why they should consider becoming staffers at his newspaper.
10. An opinion blogger at the U of I’s Daily Illini takes look at the case of religion professor Kenneth Howell, and wonders what actually went on in his classroom discussion of Catholic moral teaching and homosexuality. The comments response indicates that the issue is a live wire with her readers.
11. The editors of the Minnesota Daily demand an apology from the state’s governor Tim Pawlenty, whose rising presidential ambitions led him to make regrettable “anti-Islamic” remarks.
12. An op-ed columnist for UT/Austin’s Daily Texan thinks President Obama was absolutely right to duck a meeting with Texas governor and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry.