Southwestern Community College’s “The Sun” was printed and released on time thanks to funding from students according to a Senior Staff writer.
On Sept. 29th the Sun was delivered a cease-and-desist order to stop production of the paper. The order cited policy that hasn’t been enforced at Southwestern College in 20-years.
Policy 6063 allows the administration to have final say on content and allows them to fire the Editor in Chief of the paper according to Lyndsay Winkley a senior staff writer. The measure also forces the Sun to get a 3-1 approval from the board before printing.
“We have been told that we cannot print with funding from the school,” Said Winkley “Until an agreement is reached we will raise the money on our own.”
On Sept. 30 the Sun did just that. They released their first issue without the help of the school. All funding for the Semesters first issue came from students and supporters from the community.
“We are unsure why this is happening now,” said Diana Inocencio Editor in Chief of the Sun. “But it does seem like something fishy is going on.”
Inocencio assured that she felt confident that they would continue to print even without the support of the administration. She also informed that they were receiving a huge support from the teaching staff at the college.
“The policy just forces the Sun to follow the same business practices every other student organization must follow.” Said Chris Bender Southwestern College’s Chief of Communications.
Bender expressed his concern to find a way to get the paper printed. He also said that they were successful getting money for the next issue after a meeting held on Friday.
“The budget committee came across the policy this summer during an annual review,” said Bender “the approval is just to ensure that we are only paying to print what is worth printing.”
Some say the order to stop printing came because the Sun planed to release an article about problems with Nicholas Alioto Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs.
In an unsigned article posted on the Sun’s website President of the College Raj K. Chopra is accused of “Overtly Attacking” the paper several times in the last year and trying to “Manage the Media.”
Chopra and other members of the administration were unavailable for comment.
Bender feels that printing issues have been resolved after Friday’s meeting. Winkley has been unavailable for comment since the meeting, but Inocencio commented that while not updated entirely of the meeting that this issue was not over.
“We will find a way to get this paper printed,” said Bender “It’s just a shame that this internal funding issue has blown to such proportions.”