Utah college quickly reverses edict to remove newspaper sex column

UTAH — A Utah college dean has decided against banning an opinion column about sexual behavior after initially exerting editorial control over the newspaper’s content.

William Christensen, dean of Dixie State College’s School of Business and Communication, emailed a letter Friday to Rhiannon Bent, an associate professor and faculty adviser for The Dixie Sun News, explaining he had done “some additional research and feel I should back-off a little from my previous comments.”

“I understand the legal precedent regarding student newspapers is that colleges are not liable for the content of their student press,” Christensen wrote. “The students themselves may be liable, and are certainly answerable to the public, but that is their concern and not that of the college.”

Three days earlier, he had emailed a letter to Bent insisting two articles written by Katie McKellar and published online Jan. 9 and 11 be deleted immediately. As a representative of the university, he wrote, he views himself as “a sort of ‘executive editor.'”

“This communication is not meant to criticize your work or the work of our students, it is simply an executive editorial check to ensure our publications are consistent with our mission and values,” Christensen wrote. “Therefore, I hope you and your students understand this is an exercise in editorial control, and not one of censorship.”

He cited concerns that the subject of sex could create a “hostile work environment” for some students who may feel uncomfortable discussing such topics.

Dixie Sun News Editor-in-Chief Matty Jacobson, however, said when the university president contacted him after receiving a complaint about the column from an irate parent, he was not shy about sharing it.