Student journalists at La Salle University were told by administrators not to run on the top half of their front page an article on a professor who allegedly hired strippers to perform at an ethics symposium.
To follow the rules, the newspaper put the story on the bottom half of its front page - and left the top half blank except for a note: "see below the fold."
Vinny Vella, a junior communications major and the paper's editor-in-chief, said the imaginative layout was a professor's idea.
Vella added that it was not done out of spite.
"At times it was frustrating to me how La Salle handles certain situations," Vella said, adding that he understands the school's position in trying to curb negative publicity. "I honestly couldn't tell you what I would do if I was the administration of the college."
Jack Rappaport, an assistant management professor in the business school, was suspended earlier this week while the university investigates allegations that he hired strippers to perform during a March 21 seminar on ethics at La Salle's satellite campus in Plymouth Meeting.
Staffers at The Collegian began reporting immediately but were told that they couldn't run the article in the April 7 issue of the paper, Vella said.
They were given permission to publish the article after the Philadelphia City Paper and Daily News reported on the incident. (Click here to read the Collegian's story and here to read an editorial about the Collegian staff's relationship with administration.)
The larger issue is the tightrope that student journalists walk at private schools that fund student publications. A staff dismissing requests from administrators, in some cases, could jeopardize funding for student newspapers.
"It's kind of a hard situation to deal with," said Audrey Metzger, an accounting major at La Salle.
Although the front page of this week's edition had the campus abuzz, Metzger said most students are more interested in the school's investigation.
"You just don't expect something like that to happen at a little Catholic school," she said.
Calls and emails to the university's communications department for comment were not returned yesterday.
