April Fools!

At about 4 am today, the dorm room door of Editor in Chief Emeritus of The Virginia Informer Joe Luppino-Esposito ('08) was vandalized with glitter, shaving cream, and the duct-taped affixing of front pages of The Informer. The page in question was from The Informer's February 13 issue, featuring the infamous "NICHOL RESIGNS" headline.

As childish as this is -- after all, it IS April Fools' Day -- it does, I think, speak to the larger issue of intellectual diversity and tolerance of thought that is exhibited -- or, sometimes, not exhibited -- at William & Mary. The Informer put out a press release on this vandalism this morning:

“I’m just worried about what will come next for students who dare to speak up and stand up for what they believe in,” said Andrew B. Blasi, the newly-named editor in chief of The Virginia Informer. Blasi said that the newspaper would be following up on the story in the coming days. “The sixty members of The Virginia Informer and I expect a statement from the university regarding this incident that includes what they plan to do to deter these types of personal attacks against students.”

“Year after year the school talks about diversity,” said Luppino-Esposito. “But what about intellectual diversity? What about getting some protection for students who, after seeing incidents like this, will be intimidated to exercise their rights? It’s time for William and Mary to tackle these issues, because they are becoming enormous problems. Conservatives need a safe haven on campus from radical students who want to silence them....I’m just afraid many will be intimidated enough to stay quiet and refuse to question the environment around them, and that’s very bad for the future of free speech on this campus.”

Slow news day or not, this press release was picked up and reported on by The Daily Press in today's issue:

The former editor of the Virginia Informer, a conservative-leaning campus newspaper that long called for Gene Nichol's ouster as William and Mary's president, had his dormitory room door vandalized early today.

Joe Luppino-Esposito contended the vandalism -- shaving cream and glitter across his door, along with copies of the Informer issue that recapped Nichol's resignation covering the doorway -- was retaliation for his opposition to Nichol.

The bottom line is this: glitter, shaving cream, and duct tape are the products of a high school mind, one still excited by the concept of leaving flaming bags of dog crap on people's front porches and which delights in, say, throwing rotten eggs at old people. Assuming it was a single individual, he should probably get ready for a phone call from campus police in the next day or so. The ID system on campus records each and every swipe of an ID card into dorm buildings. I imagine that there aren't too many people trying to get into Harrison at 4 am on a Tuesday morning, so whoever did this has a very good chance of getting caught. If this person were smarter, he would have realized this.

And the larger issue here, also, is that what Informer haters don't seem to realize -- and I don't know why they don't, because it's happened enough times by now -- is that every time this sort of thing happens, it only benefits the very organization they are trying to belittle. The door of The Informer's former editor in chief gets vandalized, the paper puts out a press release, it gets picked up by the local media, The Informer sends out a letter to its very generous donors -- complete with pictures of the incident -- talking about the miserable state of free expression at William & Mary, and, two weeks later, The Informer has another $1,000 in its checking account.

It's really quite that simple -- just ask the people who started the "Pick up a copy of The Virginia Informer today! THEN BURN IT." Facebook group, because that's exactly what happened.

[NCF]