Column Caper at Southern Miss. Still Unresolved
by Jim Brown
October 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Administrators at the University of Southern Mississippi are being criticized for not doing enough to reign in a student newspaper that continues to publish a vulgar sex column. A graphic sex column published weekly in The Student Printz newspaper is still drawing the ire of some students and faculty on the Hattiesburg campus following a column last month that was essentially a how-to article on oral sex. (See earlier article) Although USM president Shelby Thames has condemned the content of the "Pillow Talk" column, the paper's staff has not been reprimanded, nor has the column been cleaned up.
Carlisle Beggerly, a philosophy department graduate student, says Printz staff members responsible for the column need to be fired.
"I think we've become so politically correct that we're tolerating something that's blatantly evil," Beggerly offers. "I was the first person to contact ... President Thames about this matter; and he hadn't even heard about it until I brought it to his attention."
According to Beggerly, since Thames learned about the column, his response has been weak at best, saying the leader has failed to ensure positive moral standards are being upheld on campus. The graduate student also shares that some campus ministries have apparently followed Thames' lead.
"For instance, the Catholic Student Union said they were going to pull the article. The Presbyterian group, likewise, said they were going to pull it," he says. "The only people I received really just a surprising message from was the Methodist group on campus. The lady minister they have there just told me that it was free speech."
Beggerly says the Baptist Student Union is the only campus religious group that has followed through with its commitment to stop funding the newspaper.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
