There are three things you should know about me, right off the bat: I’m a journalism student. I have LGBTQ friends who spoke at the campus meeting on March 3. I was in women’s choir with Dr. Jill Campbell for two semesters.
The purpose of this article is to present the truth — the indisputable facts of the situation, not speculation or hearsay. There’s been enough of that on social media and even in other news publications.
That being said, if you’re expecting me to pick a side, you’re going to be disappointed. That’s not what this article is about. The treatment of LGBT students on Asbury’s campus is an important conversation that we need to have, but I’m not qualified to speak on that subject.
What I am qualified to speak on is journalistic ethics. One of my two majors is journalism. I have interned at daily and weekly newspapers, freelanced for multiple publications, covered political events and worked on the Collegian staff for almost two years. Upon graduation, I will begin working for a daily newspaper in Indiana.
The role of journalism in a democracy, ideally, is to present people with all the information they need to make responsible decisions in both their personal lives and their political actions. I am not going to pretend that all publications play this role as they should. Many papers and news channels are prone to bias, speculation, myopia and sensationalism.
Nevertheless, this is the industry I have chosen to enter. And as a member of the press, it is not only my duty to hold to the ideals mentioned above; it is my duty to acknowledge when other publications fail.
When news isn’t reported responsibly, everyone is affected. People who are distant from a community form a false impression of that community. Individuals on both sides of a preexisting debate are provoked to outrage. The words of a single article— even if it is altered, retracted, taken down or apologized for — have long-lasting effects.
Such is the case with a recent opinion piece in The Lexington Herald-Leader regarding Asbury’s dismissals of Dr. Jill Campbell and Dr. Jon Roller.
The headline itself frames the issue before you even start reading the article: “Asbury University confronts student anger, pain over dismissal of LGBTQ-affirming professors.”
Technically speaking, the headline is factually accurate. Two professors were dismissed from Asbury (though they will not leave until the semester’s end). Both of these professors are known to be LGBTQ-affirming. And yes, the March 3 meeting was aimed at responding to student’s anger and pain over the dismissals.
The headline is not false. However, it is designed to attract attention and controversy. By mentioning the professors’ pro-LGBTQ views in the title, the Herald-Leader is inviting the implication that both professors were fired for these views.
However, while this certainly a widespread theory among students and alumni, the truth is that no one outside of the administration knows why specifically the professors were dismissed. While many students have claimed to have heard directly from Roller that his views are the reason for his dismissal, such statements (even by Roller himself) are still speculation. Neither Roller or Campbell was given an explanation for their dismissal. Instead, the university has only made more general statements about meeting community standards and upholding the university’s handbook for faculty.
It is certainly possible that Roller and Campbell were dismissed for their pro-LGBTQ views, but without hard evidence, we must treat this as theory and not fact. But instead of acknowledging this lack of proof, the Herald-Leader chose to spend over 900 words indulging the theory without properly backing it up.
“Two popular and beloved faculty—Jon Roller and Jill Campbell— were recently told their contracts would not be renewed,” the article says. “According to numerous accounts, it’s because they were supportive of Asbury’s LGBTQ students.”
And where did the Herald-Leader find these accounts of the situation?
Twitter.
Not only did the Herald-Leader cite students’ social media in its article, it chose to embed a tweet by the anonymous @AsburyActivist account that contained an mp4 recording of the March 3 meeting (despite the fact that the administration specifically asked students not to take photos of the event or record it). While the recording’s creator attempted to edit out most of the LGBTQ students’ names, there was at least one instance where he or she failed to do so.
Now, since the article was published, the account and tweet have been taken down. And I have been told by a friend (an LGBTQ student who spoke at the meeting) that the account’s owner personally apologized to her and regrets his or her impulsive actions. The person behind @AsburyActivist, my friend said, was trying to keep people informed and didn’t realize that sharing the audio would also mean sharing the vulnerable and private stories of LGBTQ students to the outside world.
Unfortunately, the damage has been done. Even though the recording was only posted online for about 24 hours, there’s no knowing how many people listened to and possibly downloaded it.
When the Herald-Leader found out about this recording, they had a choice. They could’ve chosen to mention the recording, but not link it. Or they could’ve chosen to cite the recording’s quotes verbatim. Or they could’ve chosen not to mention the recording at all. Instead, they chose to share a link to the recording.
Now, according to its website, the Herald-Leader has a total of 348,400 readers online and in print. They also have 13,932,767 page views per month and 2,063,045 monthly unique visitors. So it’s safe to say that the paper has a vast audience.
In sharing that link, editors chose to share a recording of students’ (supposedly private) testimonies with that vast audience. They acted without regard for personal privacy.
Interestingly, however, while the Herald-Leader chose to share a link to the recording, they didn’t cite any direct quotes. While I appreciate that they didn’t share the quotes of students, I don’t quite understand why they also chose not to include quotes from the administration.
I know that President Dr. Kevin Brown, in particular, made empathetic and heartfelt statements about his concern for students, his desire to continue conversations about LGBTQ students and, regardless of doctrinal differences, his disapproval of homophobic slurs. The Herald-Leader had access to these statements through the recording but chose not to run them.
In addition to not including these quotes, the Herald-Leader failed to provide sources within Asbury’s current community. They instead chose to contact David Wheeler, a former Asbury journalism professor:
“It is a tragedy for an institution of higher education to be so closed-minded that they would deny someone tenure for being LGBTQ-affirming,” he told the Herald-Leader.
However, with all due respect to Wheeler, he left Asbury in 2015 (according to an interview he did with religiondispatches.org). In other words, Wheeler has been away from this community for five years. While his views should not be entirely discounted, it’s very possible that Asbury (and its treatment of LGBTQ students) has changed in the time he’s been gone.
The article’s author, Linda Blackford, also writes that, “Most of the students I contacted directly declined to comment because they were scared the school would kick them out for publicly criticizing Asbury.”
While I don’t know how many students the Herald-Leader contacted or how each one responded, I find this statement improbable. For one, I have a friend who was approached by the Herald-Leader about this article. She considered doing an interview with them but decided against it — not because she was afraid of being expelled or disciplined, but simply because she decided (after the meeting) to trust the administration and wait for more information.
Also, most Asbury students are not shy about making their views — especially their criticism of the university — publicly known. For the past two weeks, Twitter has been ablaze with condemnation over both the dismissals and Asbury’s views on sexuality.
Furthermore, a recent short documentary by junior Sarah “SB” Stroh featured testimonies from four LGBTQ students. Stroh created the film for a class and was not punished for doing so; she also told The Collegian that the documentary’s subjects were not penalized by the university for their participation.
While it’s true that some students are afraid of being treated differently because of their sexuality (in the fall, one of my friends expressed the fear that being openly out could affect his chances of getting recommended for important internships), it is an exaggeration to say that speaking out against the administration in this matter could cause expulsion.
If the Herald-Leader encountered a substantial number of students who truly believe this, I apologize for my skepticism. However, the evidence above shows that students’ right to free speech (regardless of their sexuality) is very much intact.
The Herald-Leader ran an article that framed theory as reality, disregarded students’ privacy and failed to provide relevant sources.
I understand, as a journalist, that when a news outlet sees controversy, it wants to report on it as soon as possible, preferably before anyone else does. But there’s a reason The Collegian hasn’t run a news article on the dismissals until today. It’s simple: We didn’t have any new information. And neither does the Herald-Leader.
The article states that Roller and Campbell declined to comment. Surely, after being unable to get quotes from the primary individuals involved (and only a short response from the president himself), the Herald-Leader could’ve decided to wait, take a different angle or not run the article at all.
But instead, it decided to ignore these options, stir up controversy and create an implicit narrative that the dismissals are solely motivated by anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Alumni and outsiders are seeing this article and accepting it as fact. They are sharing it on social media and embracing it as truth.
But what is truth?
The simple truth is that two Asbury professors were dismissed.
The hard truth is that even though we want someone to blame and something to be angry about, we don’t know why they were dismissed.
The much harder truth is that the administration might never tell us or the professors why they have to leave.
And the hardest truth of all is this: Until you know the whole truth of a situation, it is better to be silent than to spread a false or incomplete narrative — even if it means holding your breath forever.
