Badger Herald Editorial Board
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Written May 27, 2009:
The Herald Editorial Board is the voice of the newspaper and takes positions on a range of local, state and student issues.
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Precedent
The Badger Herald was founded in 1969 to provide an independent student voice against prevailing liberal-left opinion. There is much interpretive disagreement about how strictly the Editorial Board has adhered to its founding conservative principles. Since the Board comments only very infrequently on national and international issues -- and only then when student issues are implicated -- the partisan ideology of any given Editorial Board is rarely obvious to readers. However, the Editorial Board has maintained certain principles over the decades through which student issues are approached. (A disclaimer at the bottom of every published board opinions reminds readers that "Editorial Board opinions are crafted independently of news coverage.")
Free speech
There are very few cases where the Herald has stepped back from a steadfast defense of free speech. More recent editorials defending this notion were those supporting the decision of Columbia University to bring Mahmoud Ahmedenejad to speak and, most notably, the defense of the Herald's own decision to print both the Mohammed cartoon features in the Jyllens-Posten controversy as well as the David Horowitz advertisement, "10 reasons why reparations are a bad idea — and racist, too!" There has been, to date, only one notable retraction or apology for an opinion piece, which was when the 1999 Editorial Board apologized for a cartoon depicting an angry student chastising Ward Connerly for his opposition to affirmative action labeling him as a white oppressor, only to discover, as Mr. Connerly turns around in his chair, that he is black.
Free market policies
In general, the editorial board supports economic policies on local and state levels that support free enterprise and free market policies. This stance has been prominent in numerous editorials regarding the city's liquor policies, Healthy Wisconsin and other state measures deemed restrictive by the board. In opposing the Alcohol License Density Plan, even ideologically-diverse boards have maintained consensus on this issue has maintained consensus
Students' rights
The Editorial Board has traditionally supported students' rights against the perennial attempts of administrators to carve out exceptions to American judicial values. The
