Every day thousands of students file through the first floor of the Carl Hansen Student Center past the bookstore and through the table-lined walkway leading to Tator Hall. Those tables represent some valuable real estate on campus for both students and vendors.

School administrators, however, have contradicted themselves as to the value and qualifications of obtaining such real estate. With their recent refusal to grant our organization, The Quad News, space at one of those tables, the school continues to curb free speech and students’ rights on campus.

We at the Quad News have reached this conclusion after four months of e-mails and meetings during which we saw the same hesitancy and received the same answers from administrators. When we first called to request table space on Jan. 4, 2010 we felt fairly confident that our request would be granted. During the phone call we were given the specifics of what was required to do so were. We provided the university with all the proper information identifying ourselves as a legitimate business, but a week later were denied our request.

After that initial refusal, we met with Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, Mark Thompson. Over a month later, after he spoke with Vice President and Dean of Students, Manuel Carreiro, we were informed that the answer was still ‘no,’ because the university did not want to set a “precedent.”

Created in the spring of 2008, the Quad News represents the values we as student journalists hold to the highest degree. Since our inception, we’ve worked diligently to abide by all university protocol—no co-sponsorships, no selling merchandise on campus, no funding from student government. The Quad News is a group made up solely of students who pay tuition and fees just like the rest.

Quinnipiac prides itself on three core values: academic excellence, possessing a student-oriented environment and emphasizing a sense of community. How then, do these values translate to the administration’s handling of the Quad News? They have not. The fact that a university is refusing a group of students the opportunity to use its facilities, an opportunity which they give non-students, is simply hypocritical.

–Matt Andrew, Hillary Federico, Brendan Rimetz