On hate-filled op-eds in college media

Latoya at Racialicious has a roundup of recent incidents of blatant racism on college campuses — particularly op-eds written in college newspapers. And here at Feministing, we’ve written about some pretty appallingly sexist commentary in the campus press. (People send us links to craptacular college op-eds all the time.)
One thing these articles and incidents have in common is that they often purport to be satire — as in, “who would believe that I really want to declare war on all Asian Americans?” To be sure, there’s a fine line between satirizing racism/sexism and perpetuating it. But these columns weren’t printed in a known satirical publication (like the Onion). They were printed alongside straightforward opinions and reported news. And majority of these writers don’t even walk that thin line between satire and hate. It’s so far over the line as to make the “it was satire!” excuse completely ridiculous. The language is often incredibly violent. And it is invariably directed at poor people, people of color, women, disabled people, etc. (Huh. Wonder why that is??)
I think there are a number of reasons why college campus media provide such awful examples of straight-up racism/sexism thinly cloaked in “humor.” The writers and editors are (relatively speaking) inexperienced. The audience is (perceived to be) rather small. And, chiefly, there is this idea of the Op-Ed section of the paper as a free-for-all zone. I know it was when I worked at the campus paper, and chatting with some college newspaper editors at a journalism school recently, I don’t think much has changed. Most newspapers take pains to hire columnists with a “range of views,” and those columnists are given free reign to write whatever they want and offend whomever they choose. (Heck, that’s practically the point of the op-ed pages, isn’t it?! — kidding, folks.) And some editors seem to believe that opinions can’t be held to the same standard of “fact” as news articles are. Just read what the editors of the CU Campus Press, which published a hate-filled screed about Asian people, said about the incident:

Max Karson’s Monday opinion, “If it’s war the Asians want…,” has clearly upset a large segment of our readership, and for that, we owe it to those who were offended by the article to maintain the highest level of journalistic integrity and sincerely apologize to anyone who was hurt by this article.
Karson’s opinion is satire and is a commentary on racism at CU published in our opinion section, not presented as fact or incitement, and not published to intentionally incite controversy. We apologize for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.

(Emphasis mine.) But the thing is, people don’t read statements of fact on opinion pages any differently than they read statements of fact in the news section. The writer wrote, “I know that Asians are not just ‘a product of their environment,’ and their rudeness is not a ‘cultural misunderstanding.’ They hate us all.” That is a statement of fact if I’ve ever seen one. (A false statement, but nevertheless presented as fact.) While there’s been some effort to hold the writers of pieces like this one accountable, I think it’s important to also focus on the editors of campus op-ed pages. They’re the gatekeepers here. And given the statement by the Campus Press editors above, many clearly don’t realize the nature of their responsibility.
So what’s the answer? Maybe a checklist that would help campus newspaper editors remember to step back and evaluate whether a “satire” was actually just hate speech by another name? Maybe, if the column or op-ed in question is about members of a specific group of people, some of those people should be asked to read it (before publication) and give their thoughts? And maybe it’s prudent to check and see whether the writer has written hateful things in the past? Just because college newspaper editors still learning about journalism doesn’t mean they get a pass for publishing this crap.