Racist Gleaner Staff
No Minority Representation
In her Letter to the Editor, Angela Washington alleges that the newspaper discriminates against minority students.
A response from the Editor is listed immediately following her writing. Gleaner correspondent Richard Kaplan also defends the newspaper and the diverse range of articles.
These are the initial comments from the Editor, published with Angela's original piece.
It is quite understandable that you have a responsibility to be somewhat selective, especially at those times when your budget has been submitted and you are awaiting approval. Nevertheless, this selectivity should not result in a censorship of articles originating from a minority student of Rutgers.
The Gleaner's reputation on printing articles from all students is an excellent one.
This freshman student then approached me as to what forum was available for the minority students as she felt the editor was racist and her articles would not be printed. This is a problem that adversely affects everyone both students and faculty.
Heresay is dangerous Angela, and so are false allegations...You, obviously, know nothing about the Gleaner, and false allegations of "racism" are enough to get you sued. I would be more than happy to meet with you and this student to discuss this issue.
...in this semester alone, two articles that were submitted in the Gleaner were "lost" somewhere in the Gleaner Office. Yet you publicly invite our opinions. It would seem futile and a waste of our time if you continue to lose or censor the articles.
By the way, if you had bothered to check around you would have learned that when those articles were misplaced, I made several attempts to contact the BSU in regard to replacing them. Also, Charles Loftland, last semester's president of the BSU, would telI you, if you had bothered to ask, that the BSU had a weekly column in the paper - including several front page stories. Check your facts Angela
The following are Kaplan's responses to Washington's letter.
Your intentional misuses of your 'journalistic ethics' has resulted in an under-representation of arcticles concerning the minority student population at Rutgers.
I have to respond because I am in the minority of the R.C. community because I am on the Gleaner's staff. First and foremost Angela, if you had read all Gleaners this year, you would have read at least fifteen articles dealing with minorities in just five issues.
Recently, a minority student approached the Gleaner inquiring about being on the staff. This freshman student then approached me as to what forum was available for the minority students as she felt the editor was racist and her articles would not be printed.
Angela, if your friend would like to work for the Gleaner, she can write on my sports staff anytime. I know sports are not a glamorous subject, but everybody has a job to do.