Newspaper theft is a cornerstone of misguided campus activism. Outraged students do it (usually when the paper prints a story that they deem to be racially insensitive). Even political candidates do it (in Berkeley anyway). It's illegal to steal newspapers, and doing so shows a lamentable ignorance about the importance of a free press and the point of writing letters to the editor. But it's popular nonetheless as a swift and effective means of suppressing offensive stories and of punishing the people who write and print them. So popular has newspaper theft become, in fact, that even campus administrators are getting in on the action.

At Hampton University, a historically black school in Virginia, administrators recently stole the school paper's press run after the paper refused front-page placement of a letter from the administration. The campus cafeteria had been cited for numerous sanitary violations and was in danger of being shut down; the administration wanted to notify the campus community that the cafeteria had just managed to pass an inspection that would allow it to stay open. The paper's policy is to print letters on page three--and that is where the administration's letter went (the front page did feature a pointer to the letter). When administrators found that the editor had followed the paper's policies instead of obeying their "request," they had University Trucking Services seize all 6500 copies of the paper. Though the all-important letter did appear in the issue, no one got to read it. A display of force finally mattered more than the dissemination of important information. The Hampton Script (not available online) has won awards for the quality of its journalism. But it doesn't sound like the Hampton deans will be winning any awards soon for the quality of their leadership.

UPDATE 10/27/03: Eugene Volokh and En Banc have more.

Thanks to Ralph Luker for the link.