Student paper in trouble over anti-Welsh "slur"
A student newspaper at St Andrews University has got itself into hot water over "racist" remarks made by its editor. Writing on the front page of The Saint, Jo Kerr joked that she had "secretly suspected the Welsh of evil doings ever since they spawned the caterwauling Charlotte Church".
Ms Kerr's article was in response to a demonstration held by members of prayer group Christian Voice, who had travelled north to protest against a controversial American play put on by students which portrayed Jesus as the gay son of an alcoholic.
"At first it all sounded like something from a Monty Python sketch, participants in a comedy portraying Jesus as a gay son of an alcoholic are attacked by a not so merry band of fundamentalist Christians from Wales," she wrote.
Stephen Green, the national director of Christian Voice, called it "a bigoted racist rampage". "I feel offended by her remarks, and I'm not even Welsh," he told a Welsh newspaper.
The Saint is an independent self-funded publication, but it rents its office from the Students Association, which was unimpressed. Last year, under a different editorial team, it had been found to be in violation of Association equal opportunity rules following publication of a photograph of two gay men kissing above the caption "faggots".
The person responsible was sacked and a lengthy apology published in the next issue, but the newspaper was not allowed back into its office on a permanent basis – it was only able to use it issue-by-issue, subject to it making efforts to fall into line with Association policies and not publishing anything discriminatory.
Association President Simon Atkins said that neither had taken place. "The Saint's last two issues have included a number of offensive comments as well as misleading statements concerning amongst other groups, the University's LGBT students, dyslexics and the Welsh, which resulted in a number of complaints having been received," he said.
Following this latest incident The Saint's ban was made more permanent. At an appeal, they were told that they would only be allowed back into their office once they have signed up to the equal opportunities regulations and paid to have "diversity awareness training" by the university's human resources department.
In addition to this, all future issues must be cleared by the university's press office, raising the possibility that it could censor anything controversial or unfavourable. This is not the Association's intention, Mr Atkins said; it merely wants to protect its members' rights.
It is not unheard of for student newspapers to be subject to scrutiny by sabbaticals prior to their publication, but this is normally only the case when they are funded by the unions of which the officers are trustees: they would be held responsible if anything libellous were published, for example.
Since The Saint is supposedly independent of the Association, though, the situation is much more unusual. We don't know how much it pays in rent, but one would assume that it could find alternative accommodation if it were serious about maintaining its independence.
We look forward to the St Andrews press office carefully considering all of the national newspapers sold to its students to ensure that none of them contain anything offensive either.
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