Ethics, not freedom of speech, is the question

It’s been about a week and a half since Max Karson’s column, “If it’s war the Asians want…” was published and the topic that keeps coming up is the First Amendment and the freedom of speech, and when does it go too far.

The truth is it doesn’t. I’ve said this before and I’ll reiterate it here: Karson, or anyone else for that matter, has the right to say and write whatever he or she wants. It’s a privilege all Americans are given.

It’s the potential consequences of these words that should be held accountable. Some people have been sued for libel or slander for their remarks. In this case, Karson’s piece could be a violation of Title VI in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination from any program or activity that receives federal funding.

Rather, the topic that should be discussed is the ethics of the column and whether it should have been published in the first place.

Take, for example, the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics – these are rules journalists should strive to abide by in order to uphold their credibility. Granted, opinion writers are allowed some liberties, but it’s one thing to bend some rules and another to blatantly hold them in disdain.

While I could pick apart Karson’s column, the heart of the problem resides with The Campus Press Editor-in-Chief Cassie Hewlings and the Opinions Editor Amanda Pehrson.

“Columnists, too, are bound by the rules of good taste,” said Fred Brown, vice chair of the SPJ Ethics Committee. “And editors should be on the lookout for submissions that go over the line.”

According to a story in The Campus Press, Hewlings and Pehrson knew that Karson had the article was already written in mid-January. They reviewed it and deemed it was acceptable to run.

Whether it was a month or an hour, reading it had to have thrown up some red flags in their heads. Hewlings admitted in the article that she had reservations about the piece, yet it still ran. Hmm, it’s a piece about rounding up Asians and performing various methods of torture – surely, this is good writing. But let’s put up a companion piece from an Asian’s perspective just for good measure.

Karson’s article should have never seen the light of day. But this is from the same paper that the week before printed “No hablo ingles,” a rant about one woman’s hatred of the Spanish language and how everyone needs to speak English.

It looks like these editors need to take another ethics class.