Media Board Sanctions

MEMORANDUM To:

Editors and Board of Directors of The Hoya

From: Erika Cohen Derr on behalf of the Media Board Date: April 22, 2009 Re:

Sanctions resulting from the April 17 hearing

I write to inform you of the sanctions assigned by the Media Board as a result of the complaint filed by the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action, which resulted in the hearing held on Friday, April 17. As you know, the Media Board requested a copy of your proposed initiatives in order to consider the measures you plan to take as we assign sanctions. Upon reviewing your initiatives, we have made sanction decisions largely based on the specific points outlined in your document. Below is a summary of the Media Board’s concerns about your proposed initiatives, followed by specific sanctions related to those points. 1) The Media Board expressed concerns about the credentials of the proposed staff development director and the potential ombudsperson. There is no information about the applicant pool for the staff development director. SANCTION: The Hoya is required to submit to the Media Board position descriptions with stipend information, recruiting plans and eligibility criteria for both the Staff Development Director and the proposed Ombudsperson, and demonstrate that the candidate selected for the Staff Development role has met the stated criteria. 2) The Media Board expressed concerns about the third party reviewer, specifically how will this reviewer be chosen and on what criteria. SANCTION: The Hoya is required to include and pay for a third party reviewer selected by the Media Board to participate in the external review process. This reviewer should have experience in professional journalism. 3) The Media Board expressed concerns about the lack of specific objectives for training under the guise of the Staff Development role. SANCTION: All Hoya staff members – staff writers and editors – are required to participate in diversity training and ethics training by October 1, 2009. Anyone who does not meet this requirement will be ineligible to write for The Hoya. Following the fall 2009 semester, training must be offered to all new staff on a per semester basis so that new staff can fulfill this requirement. Ethics training should be conducted by a professional

journalist. We recommend that the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action play a central role in developing and/or conducting the training. We also suggest that The Hoya engage with student organizations that represent minority communities in planning trainings, readership focus groups and surveys. 4) Revenues from the April Fool's edition are not clearly listed, so it is unclear how this will support the conceived program. SANCTION: The Hoya must submit exact revenue amounts from the April Fool’s Edition by April 27, 2009. These funds will be appropriated by the Media Board immediately and held in escrow to pay for the resulting community building program. 5) The final points of the memo are vague and do not specify objectives or action steps. Similarly, no individual students have stepped forward to claim responsibility for writing the articles included in the April Fool’s Edition. SANCTION: The Media Board has determined that because The Hoya has failed to put specific, actionable steps in place to demonstrably change the culture of their organization and fulfill the high expectations that accompany the claim as “the Georgetown University newspaper of record,” the bid to become independent should be delayed by one year to accommodate a probationary period during which these sanctions can be enforced and action steps can be taken. The Media Board requires that progress on all of the above sanctions should be presented in bi-monthly reports beginning September 18, 2009. Should you wish to appeal this decision, you should take the following steps. Advise me in writing of your appeal, articulating your concerns and the grounds upon which you are appealing. Upon receipt in writing of a request for appeal, I will send the appeal to a committee composed of the Vice President of Student Affairs, the president of the Faculty Senate and the president of the Georgetown University Student Association or their designates. As we are nearing the end of the semester, should you decide to pursue the appeals process, I will advise the appeals committee of the urgent nature of this matter, and encourage them to address it before the end of the academic year. Should you wish to discuss this further, please convey any questions or communication to the Media Board through me at [email protected] or (202) 687-3704. Cc: Rosemary Kilkenny, Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action

Michael Smith, Associate Director Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action Todd Olson, Vice President for Student Affairs