Collegian editor at La Salle gets his point across

The editorial staff of La Salle University's weekly newspaper, the Collegian, spent Wednesday evening plotting a mildly subversive act.

For more than a week, they had been negotiating with officials at the private Catholic university over a potentially embarrassing article about a business management professor.

Vinny Vella had the story first. (Click here to read the Collegian's story and here to read an editorial about the the Collegian staff's relationship with administration.)

On March 24, three days after the professor held an off-campus symposium using exotic dancers to demonstrate a point, Vella, the paper's executive editor, received a tip.

A junior majoring in communications, Vella, 20, assigned the story to Luke Harold. Harold interviewed two students who had attended the symposium and spoke on the record. He also sought comment from university officials and talked to the professor, Jack Rappaport.

The story was written, edited, and ready for publication April 7. "We were planning a four-column banner headline," Vella said.

But the dean of students told Vella the story would have to wait until the university completed its own investigation into the matter.

On April 8, a City Paper blog broke the story. Reports of lap-dancing and strippers were based on anonymous sources and conflicted with eyewitness accounts that Harold had heard.

Carlo Palencia, a junior who attended the symposium, told Harold that the dancers, who wore miniskirts and high heels, "would mainly walk around doing a sexy walk," but "no one was sexually or provocatively touched."

As other news outlets picked up the City Paper story, all Vella could do was prepare the more authoritative article for April 14.

But James E. Moore, dean of students, again said no, not yet, because the school was still investigating.

"At this point," Vella said, "the news had already been broken by multiple news sources. A television crew was interviewing students, and most of La Salle was aware of the story."

After arguing strenuously, Vella and Harold left the meeting dispirited. But that afternoon, the dean said that permission was granted as long as a university lawyer read the article first.

On Tuesday evening, Vella said, "We were told it could run as-is." Wednesday, he sought permission to run the story across the top of the front page. Permission was denied.