Kevin Brown, the owner of an Urbandale newspaper, recently decided to publish sports results from Dowling High School in his publication.

The events that followed his decision are very, very sad.

Since his decision, Brown has been bombarded with threats and phone calls calling for the paper to stop publishing the results. One person went as far as threatening to burn down his newspaper building.

Apparently many Urbandale residents are afraid that Dowling, a private school, will use the results to recruit athletes from Urbandale High School.

An entire editorial could be written on the fact that serious threats are being made over something as trivial as high school athletics, but there’s also a higher precedent at stake here.

It seems that several people in the Urbandale area need a little refresher on the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. As the owner of a newspaper, Brown is entitled to publish pretty much whatever he wants, as long as it’s not libelous. Having members of the public threaten him and his newspaper goes against the basic principles that this nation was founded on.

Fearing for the safety of his employees and his newspaper, Brown decided to discontinue the Dowling sports page earlier this week.

And in this land of freedom of the press, censorship won this time.