One of America’s foremost journalists will address students Monday on the benefits of printing the names of sexual assault victims in newspapers.

Geneva Overholser, former member of the New York Times editorial board and former editor of the Des Moines Register, will speak at 8 p.m. Monday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The title of her discussion is “Name the Accuser and the Accused: Reconsidering the Coverage of Rape.”

Overholser will discuss the need for truth-telling and fairness in terms of sexual assault victims. She said revealing the names of these victims fits under freedom of expression and the right to a public trial.

The suppression of the victims’ names further stigmatizes these women rather than protecting them, she said.

“I hear people argue that rape victims are under a cruel and unfair societal stigma,” Overholser said. “My argument is that shielding their names furthers that stigma.”

Overholser runs against the grain of most national media, who have a policy of shielding the names of sexual assault victims.

David Kraemer, editor in chief of the Ames Tribune, said the Tribune, along with most newspapers in the country, doesn’t publish the names of these victims.

“Withholding the names of sexual assault victims is the one exception we make, which is keeping with the standard practice of the industry,” he said. “The reasons for this are the stigma attached with the sexual assault, which could cause revictimization of the victims.”

The Iowa State Daily also withholds the names of sexual assault victims, unless the person gives his or her permission for publication.

Overholser’s career spans a variety of journalism experience. In addition to her work at the New York Times and the Des Moines Register, she is a former ombudsman of the Washington Post and was named “Editor of the Year” by the National Press Foundation. She currently holds the Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting in the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington bureau.

During her tenure as editor, the Register won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for a series on the rape of an Iowa woman.

In the professional journalism world, Overholser was regarded as one of the leading female editors of a large, respected newspaper, said Dick Haws, associate professor of journalism and communication.

“She’s considered a trailblazer in regards to females who run a newsroom,” he said.