Campus Press Update

The Campus Press, the University of Colorado-Boulder student newspaper that caused a stir with a column that called for a war between Asians and whites, has suspended its opinion section pending approval of an opinions policy.

In a statement on its Web site, the newspaper said it is "in the process of organizing an open, public forum to address diversity sensitivity in our news coverage in which we invite students to voice the direction they think the publication should go. The Campus Press staff is rewriting the publication's ethics policy, which will include addressing diversity issues in our coverage."

In addition, "The Campus Press Web site will be redesigned to clearly separate our opinions from our other sections, and a disclaimer will be added to every published opinion from here after."

In a letter to the campus community posted on the newspaper's Web site Friday, Opinions Section Editor Amanda Pehrson reflected on a community meeting held Wednesday to discuss the column and racism on the campus.

"I still believe that we can use the recent events as a means to move forward," she wrote.

Meanwhile, Max Karson, the student who wrote the controversial column, published a guest column in the Daily Camera, the community paper in Boulder, on Friday defending himself and expressing his frustration at the reaction to his piece.

“Sometimes it’s necessary to offend in order to provoke thought about difficult subjects,” Karson wrote. “For example, in my ‘Asians’ piece, I poked fun at Asian stereotypes for the purpose of mocking racist white people who never bother to understand or even consider Asian cultures and race relations at the University of Colorado."

He goes on to say, "My job as a journalist is to create that open dialogue by amplifying the voices of students -- even students with racist or other hateful ideas that I disagree with."