School newspaper hiring 'social justice' reporter
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student newspaper is looking to hire a reporter whose sole responsibility will be to cover stories related to “diversity, inclusion, and social justice.”
Earlier this month, The Racquet posted a solicitation seeking to fill two positions for the 2018-2019 school year: a “General Assignment Reporter” and a “Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Reporter.”
Both reporters will be expected to complete weekly story assignments, and are expected to conduct background research, identify and contact sources, and provide at least one photo.
According to the paper’s website, reporters earn $24 per week, plus an additional $12 per article, and may also request internship credit for the experience.
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The Racquet, which bills itself as “the official campus newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse since 1910,” purports to “honor” its role as an opinion leader by “publicizing a diverse range of informed opinions.”
Its opinion section, however, is reliably left-leaning, featuring op-eds endorsing net neutrality, food stamps, “multicultural literature,” a “sex-positive” approach to grade school sex education, and more—many of which are posted under the bylines of staff reporters.
One April op-ed, for example, claims that Donald Trump’s tendency to dismiss media reports as “fake news” is “clearly the President of the United States attempting to dismantle the purpose of a Free Press.” While the author acknowledges that previous presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, have also been sharply critical of the press, she concludes that “this fact does not lessen the concern we all should have about Trump’s tweets, especially those protected by the First Amendment.”
Another op-ed, published roughly a week later, addresses a study claiming that police officers “fired on an armed target more quickly when the target was African American than when White,” remarking that the results are “not surprising considering the racist society we live in.”
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The same staff reporter also penned another piece in February advocating for stricter gun control laws, arguing that the Second Amendment was “written in an era where a musket could be fired two to three times per minute if operated perfectly,” and that the founders “could never imagine the gun that Nicholas Cruz used in the Parkland High School shooting which had a rate of fire of about 600 rounds per minute, if used correctly.”
The op-ed goes on to claim that “the NRA rewrote the Second Amendment” in the 1970’s, asserting that “It was not until the NRA supported so many of our capitalist agendas that we even deemed guns important.”
A March letter-to-the-editor titled “Engendering Gender,” meanwhile, defends the use of gender-neutral pronouns by asserting that a growing number of people do not identify as either male or female, and that “all of these people prefer to use gender neutral personal pronouns.”
The writer even seems to imply that “non-binary” conceptions of gender are becoming the norm in the context of suggesting that the dictionary definition of “gender” should be changed to mean “the way a person thinks and/or feels within their body.”
That definition is preferable to the existing one, she writes, because “it is relatable to each and every person on this planet, not just the slim few who do identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.”
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Other examples from the paper’s opinion section include op-eds titled “Trump’s Media Views are Dangerous for Democracy” and “Joe Biden: A National Treasure”
Campus Reform reached out to both UW-La Crosse and The Racquet’s editors for comment, but has not received a reply from either.
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