We made a mistake.

Our editorial “Have some respect” printed Oct. 30 pointed out a series of events that have occurred recently that are, frankly, embarrassing to the university student body — our mistake was wording the editorial in such a way that it appeared we were blaming all problems on the entire campus minority population.

That was wrong of us.

Ironically, the words of that editorial have also been embarrassing to the university.

Tay Triggs was right when she said this wasn’t a race issue; it is a student issue. Bad behavior isn’t confined to one race or minority; we’re all guilty of it at one time or another. It was a mistake on our part to link this behavior with race or to insinuate that the behavior of a small group of students is representative of a wider population of students.

Our normal process, during the week-long preparation cycle of the Griffon News, includes a conference among the student editors on the ‘staff’ editorial issue and what stance should be taken on the issue chosen. That discussion is held between Wednesday and Friday and the person writing the editorial has it on the page by Sunday’s deadline. It is then reviewed by at least two other editors during the evening deadline process.

The Oct. 30 issue didn’t function this way. Due to a college media convention in Washington D.C. the previous week, several editors were away and there was no usual editorial board meeting and no topic or stance decided upon before the Sunday deadline workday. The process did not go through the same review steps and the ‘staff’ editorial was instead written by a single writer with insufficient feedback.

It was completed after midnight Sunday, after most of the editors had already left. Because of that, our first apology goes out to the editors and staff who were not even aware of the topic of the editorial, much less its content, but who were implicated because the “Staff editorial” label was used.

But more importantly, we want to apologize to the campus community.

While we do apologize, we recognize that an apology is not enough.  We recognize our mistake and encourage readers of all backgrounds to take us to task.  We hope the 500-word editorial printed last week will be countered by 5,000 or more words in this and future editions.

We hope that in the end, some good can come from our mistake.

Through the written responses of those we have offended, we hope that not only the newspaper but the campus community as a whole can learn that racism should not and cannot be tolerated on this campus. 

Through these responses people will think much more carefully about their words and actions, and the thoughts and attitudes which underlie those words and actions

We hope that from this bad situation that good can arise for everyone involved.