Jacqueline Akunda, on behalf of the African Studies Initiative at the University, wrote one piece that caught my eye in the past week about an email sent to the University community from the Medical Center via the Office of the President in regard to a patient at the Medical Center who had tested negative for Ebola. Akunda raises several topics that I would like to see explored more in the pages of The Cavalier Daily: homogenization of different parts of the world, othering of those different from us and the domination of the Western viewpoint in discussions. Commentary on recent news items would be a great thing for the editors of The Cavalier Daily to seek out. In this particular case, Akunda’s concerns are that the email was carelessly worded and demonstrated that the University administration is disengaged and unaware. Akunda may well be correct that the University administration is all of those things about issues having to do with Africa. This email, though, had at least one other significant consideration involved that trumped the rest: patient privacy and confidentiality. When releasing information to the public about an individual patient there must be a balance between informing the public and protecting the patient’s right to privacy and to have their medical information kept confidential. The email gave the least amount of information necessary to inform the public in response to public queries. More specific information would have increased the likelihood that the person in question could be identified. The irony that this construction of privacy is a Western one is not lost on me.
There are times when I read The Cavalier Daily (and, to be fair, every other newspaper, too) and I find myself cocking my head to the side and thinking “wait, what?” That happened a couple of times with the lead editorials this past week. It happened on September 30 when the lead editorial was about what the managing board think are good things the University is doing to try to address sexual assault, gender violence and student safety in the aftermath of Hannah Graham’s disappearance and at least 3 reported sexual assaults the previous weekend. Students, who rallied the previous Friday, are described as being “overcome with fear and anger” and having “taken up arms.” Using such phrasing is at best careless in that it is literally untrue and at worst more inflammatory than it needs to be in context.
It happened again on October 2when I read the lead editorial calling on colleges and universities not to ban smoking on campus. In this case the argument seems something like a decade behind, but what struck me was how thoroughly student-centered it was. There was concern about infringing on student practices (that is, smoking), consideration of limits on student productivity and a declaration that students should be allowed to make their own decisions. In a vacuum those are good things to debate and fine to conclude even if I would take issue with each part of the argument. The framing of the argument itself was flawed, though, because the University is also a place of work for thousands of people both faculty and staff and there is no consideration of them in the editorial. Further, the quotation about a smoking ban used as a launching point for the edit was from the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources for the University System of Georgia, someone who manages employees, not students. The productivity concerns a human resources professional has are about workers. The piece might have been very different if the concerns and perspectives of people other than only students were considered.
A couple of brief notes: I noted several corrections appended to online articles in the last week or so noting alterations from “a previous version of this article.” This is a great way to show readers when changes have been made and I hope to see a lot more notes like that when any substantive change is made. I still have no idea what the differences are between a “Viewpoint Writer” and someone who writes a regular opinion column. Are there different standards or rules for the columns depending on whether the end result is an opinion or a viewpoint?
Christopher Broom is the public editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com.
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