Firing of paper's adviser blasted: UT-Tyler urged to rethink move

Houston Chronicle ^ | April 18, 2002 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

TYLER -- A council of journalism and communication schools in eight states has condemned a decision by officials at the University of Texas at Tyler to dismiss the student newspaper's adviser after she encouraged students to practice aggressive reporting.

In a letter to UT-Tyler's provost, Fred Blevens, president of the Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication, criticized administrators for firing the adviser without "due process" or "establishing just cause," and urged them to reconsider cutting her position.

Provost David O'Keeffe was out of town Wednesday evening and unavailable for comment, his wife said. But O'Keeffe has said administrators were not required to explain their decision not to renew the contract of Vanessa Curry, who advised student journalists for three years at the bimonthly, award-winning Patriot.

Under Curry's leadership, the paper drew disapproval from officials for filing open records requests for everything from administrator salaries, campus crime reports and even donors' pet projects.

Along with Curry's firing, administrators unveiled new policies for the newspaper that critics say would violate free speech.

"Board members were convinced that this termination was prompted by the aggressiveness of the UT-Tyler campus press," Blevens wrote in the letter sent to media Wednesday.

"It is essential that administrators in higher education recognize that teaching students about freedom of expression, and letting them practice it, is a rudiment of the liberal traditional in education," Blevens wrote. "It is not a toy to be given and taken away at the whim of administrators who fear embarrassment or accountability."

Department of Communications Chairman Kenneth Casstevens says the new publications policy allows senior administrators to determine "the character and policies of all student publications" at the 3,300-student school. Administrators also would choose the paper's editor, something formerly done by the adviser.

O'Keeffe, who is also vice president for academic affairs, says the new policy was not intended to control the paper, but has said the Patriot's open-records requests "raised some concern at the level of the administration. You should bear in mind, I don't believe the students should be getting into that. They aren't prepared to do that. They can do a lot of harm."

Curry was a reporter for almost a decade at the Tyler Morning Telegraph and a former assistant editor of the Daily Progress in Jacksonville.

Curry did not immediately return a message left at her home late Wednesday.

[Polonius]

It'll be interesting to see whether the University of Texas at Tyler sticks with this horrible decision.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

O'Keeffe, who is also vice president for academic affairs, says the new policy was not intended to control the paper, but has said the Patriot's open-records requests "raised some concern at the level of the administration. You should bear in mind, I don't believe the students should be getting into that. They aren't prepared to do that. They can do a lot of harm."

This statement and who's saying it, says it all.