An advertisement in the student newspaper at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls has caused some controversy. The full-page add in the Northern Iowan promotes summer classes at the University of Iowa.
The March 27th add apparently led to protests from UNI students who didn’t think it should be running in their school’s paper. The issue prompted a story by the Northern Iowan’s executive editor Lihn Ta, who explained the U-I ad is not offensive in regard to gore, sexual or discriminatory content. The article says the paper does not discriminate against anyone who wants to place an ad as long as they meet the proper guidelines and pay for the ad.
Ta says in the article, “From a subjective point of view, as a Panther myself, I could extremely dislike our sister institution and want to protect UNI and encourage enrollment here. But we’re running a newspaper. We will not censor or deny anyone a voice, be it an article or an ad.”
The president of the UNI student body Tom Madson told the Waterloo Courier he was appalled by the ad at first, but says he’s okay with it if taking those courses helps UNI students save some money and graduate earlier.