Student Media Company’s dissolution in May 2018 ended more than 100 years of truly independent student journalism at SMU. Not long after being absorbed by the SMU Journalism Department, the Daily Campus had fewer than 10 staff members, and little power to hold the university accountable in any meaningful way.
We remain committed to bringing back a tradition of meaningful journalism to SMU despite these obstacles. Over the past semester, we have worked to triple in size and publish original content on a regular basis. However our biggest obstacle by far has been the university’s lack of transparency.
In September 2019, a student was arrested on campus on charges of sexual assault. When asking for information that was within our, or any student’s rights to know, student journalists were repeatedly met with tight lips and redirected to SMU’s Director of Strategic Communication. Within weeks of his arrest, the Daily Campus received multiple eyewitness reports that the student had returned to campus after posting a $75,000 bail. When we attempted to confirm his enrollment status, directory information that is not necessarily restricted under FERPA, journalists were immediately told by the registrar that SMU does not provide such information under any circumstances.
We are speaking from the perspective of a student publication, but these issues of transparency and administrative equivocation have implications that affect all students.
Jack Davis, a junior at SMU, has suffered these consequences firsthand. After filing a report with the SMU Title IX Office, Davis was treated more like a perpetrator than a survivor of sexual assault. Responses to his emails came after legally enforced deadlines, and his first report disappeared after a staffing change over the summer. When Davis attempted to access his own police report, SMU PD requested an opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, a lengthy process that drastically postpones the documents’ release until the Attorney General specifies what information SMU is required to disclose, if any.
When the opinion is received, SMU is able to redact everything except the most specific interpretations of the AG’s instructions. We know this, because the majority of reports we have requested have gone to the AG’s office, and returned to us essentially blacked out with redactions.
Student privacy is important, but not to the point that it jeopardizes student safety.
Last month, SMU refused to comply with the AG’s recommendations to disclose information about campus sexual assault to the Daily Campus. The university is choosing instead to sue the AG to keep these records private. The absence of any form of honest communication from the university to its students undermines the very foundation of its core values. Those values include integrity, intellectual freedom and open dialogue.
It demands the question: How can SMU claim to shape world changers when they hide from its students the very world they are meant to change?
