The Vanderbilt Student Communications Board believes it can protect something by firing Hustler Editor in Chief Jarred Amato. They believe they can protect the integrity of The Vanderbilt Hustler and set an important precedent regarding future ethics violations. While the board made an understandable decision, since Amato's fabrication of the Who's Now results was both foolish and unethical, the disrespectful, cowardly matter in which the board handled the situation defies comprehension. Rather, it sets a horrible precedent for future board behavior and reveals a need for the VSC board to re-examine both its makeup and its purpose.

The VSC board has eight voting members - three professors and five students. The students - Katherine Miller, Douglas Kurdziel, Mike Warren, Rhyse Nance and Ally Smith - have the majority for a reason. They are expected to represent the perspective of the students in Vanderbilt media, including its flagship publication, The Vanderbilt Hustler. Bizarrely, The Hustler has no intentional board representation. Miller has been the opinion editor of The Hustler for just under half a semester but joined the board while she was working for The Torch, a much smaller, conservative magazine. Kurdziel serves as Torch editor in chief, and Warren works as an associate editor for the same publication. Neither Nance nor Smith have had any affiliation with any publication for some time. In short, nobody on the board can or has been placed there to speak to the needs and operations of its most important print publication, The Hustler. Nobody on the board, therefore, could convey the extent to which the current Hustler staff overwhelmingly feels nobody is more qualified and capable of manning The Hustler's helm than Amato, even given his momentary lapse of judgment.

If this group can, behind closed doors without any required explanations, make crucial staffing decisions for an organization with which it has only a tangential relationship, the least they could do is take responsibility for those decisions. The board, however, opted not to do this and, following their decision, went their separate ways without informing Amato. Instead, they relied on Director of Student Media Chris Carroll, who has no say in board operations, to serve as a go-between. This cowardly, patently unprofessional behavior on the part of the board, most of whom are students no better than Amato, does not set a good precedent for a group that has chosen the most severe punishment available for a lapse in professionalism.

This gets to the heart of the matter - the purpose of VSC. According to their mission statement, they serve three purposes - "the provision of an environment that fosters the development of students' skills, ... the provision of realistic opportunities for students to learn and gain competency in specialized mass communications skills, ... and the provision to the campus community of print and broadcast media serving as forums for free expression, allowing the exchange of ideas, dissemination of news, outlets for creative work and vehicles for entertainment, fulfilling a role critically essential to the health of a vibrant university in a democratic society." The board, which had a number of options with regards to his future, must have thought the continuation of his editorship posed a threat to the fulfillment of their third provision, based on the fact that, in one instance that has been publicly acknowledged and apologized for, Amato fabricated survey results. Ignoring momentarily the fact that discontinuing his editorship clearly poses a threat to The Hustler's ability to produce a quality product, and ignoring the fact that any precedent set on a college campus lasts just four years, they must have taken into account their first provision, decided Amato had fully developed as an editor and found his ability lacking. They failed to see this college junior as the student that he is, actively engaged in an ongoing learning process. They had an opportunity to help this individual realize his mistake, educate him on its consequences, and, in keeping with their mission, be a part of the development of an already accomplished, award-winning journalist. Instead, in an effort designed to protect their third provision, they chose a path that violated all the other provisions of their mission statement by refusing to encourage a student's development and denying him opportunity in a manner that both embarrassed and endangered The Hustler.

The VSC board can never be effective if it does not grant its most important and profitable component, The Hustler, permanent student representation. It is of little use if its main purpose is not the education and encouragement of promising students. It deserves no respect if it does not conduct itself in a professional, respectful manner. Its student members are confused if they think the power they are granted in any way makes them better than their fellow students. And anybody who thinks it serves the greater good to deliver a dramatic, life-altering blow to a promising student for a mistake that harmed nobody is just wrong.