Hampton Students, Provost Reach Settlement

Photo credit: Jennifer McLaughlin Workers from university trucking services confiscate copies of the Oct. 22 Hampton Script from the publication's office.

The editorial staff of The Hampton Script at Hampton University, whose latest edition was seized when they refused to run a letter from the administration on the front page, changed course Oct. 24 and agreed to print the disputed memo, written by the school's acting president, on page one.

In exchange, university officials promised to abide by the recommendations of a task force that will be established to determine the role of the student newspaper at the school. The task force will comprise members of the newspaper, the director of the university's Scripps Howard School of Journalism, and four HU faculty members, including Earl Caldwell, a renowned former New York Times reporter who holds an endowed chair at the Scripps school.

"This is a step toward change,” said Talia Buford, a junior at the school and editor-in-chief of the Hampton Script. "(Acting HU president JoAnn) Haysbert has promised the staff that she will implement whatever the task force's findings are. We are confident this committee will secure the newspaper's freedom from interference by the administration of any kind, not only for us but for future generations of student journalists."

Buford said that no timetable was established for the committee to announce its findings, but Christopher Campbell, the director of the Scripps school, said he expects the committee to begin meeting as soon as Monday, and that recommendations could come soon after. "This is creating the ideal situation in which student journalists can flourish on this campus," Campbell said. "We have an opportunity to create a model for how student newspapers at private universities should function."

Haysbert said she expects the task force "will uncover valuable insight that will collectively make Hampton stronger."

The task force was composed after the Script editorial staff refused to place Haysbert's memorandum about the recent state health inspections at the student cafeteria on the front page of the Oct. 22 homecoming issue.

The state inspectors found a number of critical health code violations and threatened to shut down the cafeteria if the university did not correct the situation. Haysbert's memo outlined steps the university took to bring the cafeteria up to code.

The students instead wrote a front-page story that focused on those actions, and in a separate box, referred readers to Haysbert's memo, which they ran on page 3. They said they were following the news values instilled in them at the university's journalism school. After learning that the students did not run the memo on page one, Haysbert ordered university workers to confiscate the newspapers before they were distributed.

The newspaper staff planned to redesign the homecoming edition on Friday evening so that it could be printed and distributed Saturday, the day of Hampton’s homecoming football game.

Kara Edgerson, a student at Hampton University, is a staff writer for the Hampton Script.

Posted Oct. 24, 2003