The Brown & White

In the Jan. 26 issue of The Brown and White, a letter to the editor from senior Andrew Craig Keller was published. The letter, titled "Bookstore charges too much," outlined the author's belief that price discrimination was going on at the bookstore to the detriment of the student population.

Two days later, a manager ripped up several copies of that issue of The Brown and White and threw out the copies remaining at the bookstore.

While this incident might seem minor to some, and we certainly respect this manager's right to hold a negative opinion of the letter and issue in question, we believe it represents a much larger problem.

Free speech is generally an issue people of all political persuasions can agree on, but still, incidents happen every day in which free speech is stifled.

It happens all over the world, but when it happens in the U.S., it's especially disappointing. Lehigh has taken a number of steps to promote free speech including last semester's "Lehigh Celebrates the First."

The series of events in October included a discussion with Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center and Newseum in Washington D.C., as well as the planting of the Liberty Tree outside Coppee Hall.

Freedom of speech is part of the First Amendment of our Constitution, and it's frustrating to see any opinion, but especially one of a student at a university, so blatantly silenced.

By destroying and throwing away the copies of The Brown and White, this manager prevented students visiting the bookstore from reading the student's opinion.

He also prevented any families, prospective students or other campus visitors from getting the opinion.

Campus bookstores are often the first place visitors will go, but if they visited Lehigh's bookstore that day, they were missing out on a student's opinion, just because it may have reflected negatively on someone.

If this manager was unhappy with what was written, or if the student had some facts wrong that needed to be corrected, he could have written a response to the letter. The Brown and White would have been happy to publish it, and it would have been a welcome addition to an ongoing campus discussion.

Instead, free speech took a big step backward because someone didn't like it when a student dared speak out against what he saw as a discriminatory policy. Just because something makes you or your company look bad doesn't mean it should be silenced or negated. Take a look at some comments on The Brown and White's Web site for evidence of that.

It's disappointing that free speech continues to be a problem on both the local level and the world stage. It's the only way to make democracy work and to hear every side to every story.

But freedom of speech didn't prevail this time much to our - and hopefully the entire campus' - dismay. Let's stand up for this student and our newspaper, and allow the Liberty Tree to blossom once again.