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Montclair Student Government Partially Restores Student Paper’s Funds

Awash in negative press, the Montclair State University student government has temporarily reversed its decision to freeze the funds of Montclair's student newspaper, the Montclarion. The student government voted yesterday to release part of the Montclarion's funds for the next thirty days. During that time period, the student government hopes to "negotiate" an agreement with the paper. This is good news in that it puts the Montclarion back in print for the time being, but bad news because it leaves part of the funding frozen and reflects the student government's failure to see that withdrawing funding from the paper is not an acceptable course of action. The Student Press Law Center reported the Montclarion's editor's take:

Montclarion Editor in Chief Karl de Vries said he is disappointed by the vote because it is only a temporary release of the funds and the paper only has access to part of its budget-enough to print the paper and buy office supplies.

"This is to suggest that we are still in the wrong throughout all of this," he said.

Hopefully, before "negotiating" with the paper, the student government will brush up on the First Amendment and realize the error of its ways. Meanwhile, I'm sure we can look to the Montclarion's editorial pages for hard-hitting commentary on the unfolding situation.

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