EDITORIAL: The Rebel Yell responds

What you see is the image that has stirred many members of the university community into fiery discourse.

The restaurant’s mascot, “Juicy Lucy,” is a graphic caricature of a woman marked up as if she were mere livestock, not a person.

Let’s be clear: No one at The Rebel Yell thinks this is an acceptable view of women or an image that promotes healthy social values.

But our respect for social justice does not stop there.

We believe in a firm code of ethics – one that mandates the separation of editorial content production from advertising revenue and its influences. When our newspaper contains an offensive ad, it is not because we approved it as being consistent with a set of ideals we seek to promote – it is because we are extremely reluctant to violate the precious safeguards that keep the student press free.

Because we do not allow our personal opinions to mix with our collection of revenue, we are free to express our opinions without pressure from those who fund our publication. Yes, this means our advertisers can do as they like with the space they purchase, and sometimes they will make offensive choices, but imagine the consequences if this was not the rule:

What if our reporter who writes on CSUN student government was allowed to weigh in on the content of an ad placed by a Senator?

What if we were afraid to publish a story about violent crime because the perpetrator of that crime had a huge contract in advertisement?

Certainly anyone can see the violations of ethics implicit in allowing editorial content to be pushed around by advertising revenue. Well, it goes both ways.

If we do not withhold from exercising editorial control over our advertising content unless absolutely necessary, we stand to lose the source of that very freedom we defend. The fact is, The Rebel Yell runs on ad revenue. Take that away and we cannot train great journalists to speak the truth regardless of outside influence. Take that away and we cannot give students real-world experience in our advertising office.

Take away an ad because it offends some people, and we would have to take them all out – anything that could offend anyone. Who are we to say that the ad on page 20 is more offensive than the one on page 10? Would that not be a showing of bias and censorship?

But the most important reason of all that we cannot and will not reject the ad in question is this: Forget the fact that without ad revenue in general we could not provide a forum for voices in the UNLV community to sound off on important issues. Had it not been for this ad, who knows how long it would have been before something made this community speak out?

Our Web site is teeming with comments on Anthony Guy Patricia’s op-ed, which criticized the ad and this newspaper for running it. Our inboxes are overflowing with letters. Oh yes, we agree. The mistreatment of social equality in the ad is appalling – but we are proud to be the providers of the forum where you are speaking out.

After the greatly diminished showing at the second rally against cuts to the Nevada System of Higher Education, there were rumblings in the student community that the outpour of support seen at the initial rally was an anomaly – that such a level of student passion and involvement could not be repeated at UNLV. The word was, as one hears so often, that UNLV students are apathetic.

As of publication time, Patricia’s article has attracted 109 comments – more than any single article on this site.

The beauty of free speech is that, although shocking images can be created, movements like these, which act against the use of this image, can also come about.

And this is far from over.

The contract for the offensive ad extends for another month. In only three days this campus has burst into passionate discourse over issues of sexual violence and hate crimes. Imagine what would happen if the discussion continued?

This is what change is made of.

If you haven’t yet, read Patricia’s piece about the advertisement in our Oct. 5 issue and join the lengthy discussion that follows – or contribute an op-ed of your own on this matter for consideration.
If you like, join the Facebook group devoted to protesting the establishment that placed the ad. Follow The Rebel Yell on Twitter and join the conversation that way.

With every word you write – every time you shout out against injustice or raise your voice in support of fairness and truth – you become the reason we hold to our conscience.

You may hate us now, but you are – this is – the reason we are proud to protect the First Amendment in all aspects of The Rebel Yell.

And if this fight means anything to you, we hope you use your own right to free speech to yell, too.

ON THE WEB
UNLV Boycott The Grind! group
Anthony Guy Patricia’s op-ed

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