A question I am often asked is who exactly controls what is printed in the Iowa State Daily. The quick and simple answer is that students do.

But it’s a little more complex than that.

It is true that the Daily’s newsroom is completely controlled by students. The reporters are students. The editors are students. The columnists are students.

This probably comes as no surprise. After all, the Daily is a student newspaper. Within the bounds of the First Amendment and more recent free speech laws, the Daily is an uncensored student voice on campus. There are no advisers, professors or administrators who tell us what we can and cannot print.

So what exactly does this mean to the average student?

We at the Daily believe that students have a right to be informed about their campus from the uncensored perspective of their fellow students. Suppose the Des Moines Register’s top editors commuted to Des Moines every day from Illinois. The paper may still be able to put out a quality product by journalistic standards, but with editors who only have limited participation in Iowa life and culture, something ultimately would be lacking from its pages.

The same holds true at the Daily. If an outsider is given the power to oversee the Daily’s newsroom, then something inevitably gets lost in the translation. Students should expect to read articles, columns and editorials that are written and edited by people who are involved first-hand in the academic, social and cultural life of the campus. This fact should not — and cannot — be taken for granted.

In one way or another, for one purpose or another, there have been attempts over the years to stifle this voice.

One major example is a skirmish that arose at the paper almost two years ago. It became known that several members of the Daily’s publication board — the board that oversees the business operations of the paper — felt that that the newsroom should have a professional adviser that would oversee the editorial operations of the paper. The professional adviser would basically have taken the power of the press out of students’ hands and essentially —in my mind at least — ended the Daily’s status as a student newspaper. The newsroom was outraged by the proposal, as were other journalists — both professionals and students — from across the state.

In this case, student free speech prevailed. The publications board dropped the proposal.

It was never made clear to me why some people would want a professional adviser to oversee the newsroom. The paper neither needed one nor did it want one. But the overlying fact is that some people had a problem with the newsroom, and their answer to that problem was to stifle its editorial voice with an adviser.

A more recent example of people trying to stifle the student press came last spring when the Daily ran a real estate advertisement that tried to persuade students to move out of the residence halls. Some university administrators took great offense at the advertisement and promptly notified the Daily that if it kept placing the campus in such a bad light, it may be forced to start paying rent for its spot in Hamilton Hall (Hamilton Hall was originally built by ISU’s student publications, and it was sold to the university under the strict agreement that the publications would always have free space to operate).

With the Daily’s First Amendment rights completely forgotten, a few administrators felt that financial threats in this case were the best means to stifle the paper’s free speech. These administrators were informed that the Daily is not a public relations tool for the university. And the paper’s content — including advertising — has no obligation to give a favorable slant to the university.

Sometimes the newsroom almost gets defensive in its quest to prove its independence and right to free speech, but it is a very important principle to uphold. Censorship of the student press is an issue that goes way beyond the newsroom. It affects every person who picks up a copy of the paper.

Our readers are not always going to agree with everything that is printed on our pages. If everything that was written was collectively agreed upon, then we wouldn’t be doing our job. But too often it seems that when people hold disagreements with the student press, their only answer is to censor it in one form or another.

In the realm of free speech on campus, nothing could be more dangerous.

Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.