Brown U. Paper Ad Denouncing Reparations Prompts Protests

Jet, April 2, 2001

Students at Brown University in Providence, RI, were so angered by a school newspaper's decision to run an ad denouncing slavery reparations that some of them stole the entire press run of a recent issue.

The paid advertisement that ran in the Brown Daily Herald, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea-and Racist Too," by conservative theorist David Horowitz, has a layout similar to the Bill of Rights and states that Blacks owe the United States more than it owes them.

After the ad first ran, a coalition of minority student organizations met with Herald management, asking the paper to give them a free page of advertising and donate the $725 paid by Horowitz to a campus minority fund. Both requests were denied. The next day students removed the paper from newsstands, then went to the Herald's office to take the remaining copies, but were stopped by staff.

Brown Interim President Sheila Blumstein backed the paper's decision to run the ad and said the theft would be investigated. She also urged students to avoid greater confrontation. The student coalition said it would continue its protests until the Daily Herald met its demands or "renounces its nominal affiliation with the University."

The newspaper receives no funding from the university.