All hell erupted at the University of Kansas School of Journalism in early 1965. The editorial page editor of the University Daily Kansan, Rick Mabbutt of Shoshone, Idaho, had penned an editorial late in 1964 entitled “Your Right—A Responsible Kansan.” In it, Rick wrote that the campus newspaper had withheld news about the effigy hanging of football coach Jack Mitchell and campus civil rights meetings. But the chief complaint seemed to be that news of the impending resignation of the student body vice president had been withheld.
For this, the School of Journalism faculty accused Mabbutt of libeling the faculty advisor and the former managing editor, violating journalistic ethics by showing nobody the editorial before its publication and disregarding the newspaper’s constitution. The faculty voted to place him on disciplinary probation.
So much for free and open discussion!
By the time L’Affair Mabbutt ended two weeks later, I had written four stories without ever having really disclosed what this was all about. And the reason may be that I had my own conflict of interest. I was a student at that School of Journalism, and the faculty that pursued Mabbutt could also pursue me.
Rick’s real beef appears to be that the student body vice president who was going to resign was the girlfriend (and later the wife of) the Kansan’s managing editor, Roy Miller. She was transferring to another university, in Chicago, at the end of the fall semester and didn’t want it known until the semester ended because the news might affect her grades. I don’t know what reason Roy gave for declining to spread this news, but I would have told Rick that until she had resigned, there was no news to report.
But passions run high in the hothouse of a university campus. Rick wrote his editorial, and the faculty smited him.
Mabbutt appealed the punishment to the university disciplinary committee, which was a student-faculty board, and an assistant professor of law volunteered to argue his case, saying it involved the issues of academic freedom of students and freedom of speech. After a six-hour session, the committee decided “censure” and not “disciplinary probation” was the proper punishment. Mabbutt said it was a satisfactory outcome.
By then, the people who had succeeded Mabbutt as editorial editors of the campus daily couldn’t even agree on the issue and took different sides in print. Wrote co-editor Gary Noland: “The vaguely defined reasons for the punishment, the punishment itself, and the purpose of the punishment have not been adequately justified.” Countered his associate, Leta Roth: “The journalism faculty cannot be denied the right to punish a student. For the campus readers also deserve a responsible editorial page, an idea which the faculty felt had been violated.”
I read these yellowed clips now and for the life of me cannot recreate the furor and indignation that must have roiled that proud old School of Journalism. I say much ado about nothing, on the part of both Mabbutt and the faculty. And has anything really changed about the passions that get stirred up on campuses? I think not, just the topic that arouses those passions. As for my own conflict of interest, the Star would have been better off sending a staff reporter to Lawrence to write about the controversy. But I wasn’t about to request that; I was to be married at semester’s end, and needed every buck I could earn.
Oh, a footnote. At the end of the academic year, a story of mine appeared in the Star about an awards dinner at the School of Journalism. There was an award recognizing the best work in editorial writing. It went to Rick Mabbutt.