Newspaper Thievery at the University of Georgia

Last Thursday night vandals at the University of Georgia stole over 1200 copies of The Georgia GuardDawg, the campus conservative paper. A number of the distribution bins were reportedly vandalized with acrimonious remarks. Damage was assessed at about $700.

The GuardDawg’s latest issue included an interview with Ruth Malhotra, the plaintiff in a recently successful speech code litigation case against Georgia Tech. As David French notes on Phi Beta Cons, there is an appropriate irony in the fact that the vandals targeted an issue celebrating free speech. Incidents of newspaper theft are all too common on university campuses.  FIRE has reported cases of newspaper theft and vandalism at Oregon State University, The University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, and most recently at Boston College.