Chancellor Nancy Cantor rescinded a Food Services policy Thursday morning that banned the distribution of student publications in Syracuse University dining centers. Cantor met with S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Dean Lorraine Branham, who said the policy violated students’ right to free speech.

‘All student publications will be allowed to distribute in the dining halls,’ said Kevin Quinn, SU’s senior vice president of public affairs. ‘They obviously need to work with Food Services, who will be providing bins.’

Food Services told staff members from Jerk magazine in a meeting Feb. 12 they could not place issues in the dining centers because of a long-standing policy that banned the distribution of student publications, except for The Daily Orange, because it created unnecessary waste.

Staff from Jerk met with Food Services Director David George and SU spokesman Kevin Morrow after a manager from Graham Dining Center told Katie Allyn, Jerk’s editor-at-large, on Jan. 31 that he did not want the publication in the hall because of its content, Allyn said.

‘It was clear that it was a policy that wasn’t being enforced for years,’ Branham said. ‘This policy was unwritten, unknown and the magazine had distributed (in dining centers) for years. If you actually thought about it, it made no sense. Someone was suddenly making it a problem because of something they saw in the magazine.’

None of the administrative leaders were aware of the policy or that Jerk’s staff had been denied from placing the publication in dining centers. The first time administrators heard about the incident was through The Daily Orange article printed Feb. 18, Quinn said.

After Cantor’s meeting with Branham, she and Quinn sent an e-mail to student publication staff members, alerting them that the policy had been overturned and that they could now distribute freely in the dining centers, said Melissa Chessher, Jerk’s faculty adviser.

‘The magazine is elated,’ Chessher said. ‘It’s the perfect solution. I’m glad I’m not the only one who was baffled by the whole thing.’

Branham said she believes the university has a responsibility to not limit freedom of speech. Newhouse’s role is to make students aware of what those rights are, she said.

‘As a school of communications, we understand it to be one of the most important civil liberties.’

rastrum@syr.edu

– Asst. News Editor Kathleen Ronayne contributed reporting to this article.

A previous edition of this story appeared on dailyorange.com on Feb. 18.

Published on February 21, 2010 at 12:00 pm