This week, some Minnesota Daily readers picked up copies of our publication to find anti-Islam literature inserted inside them. University of Minnesota administrators have also brought the flyers to our attention.
Last month, the University was targeted in a nationwide cyber hack that caused printers across a string of colleges to produce anti-Semitic fliers.
That flyer called for white men to “join us in the struggle for global white supremacy” and included a link to an anti-Semitic forum website. The one tucked into issues of our own paper described its perspective as “Anti-Islam? Yes. But pro-TRUTH & pro-FREEDOM.”
Shared spaces and resources at the University — the Daily included among them — are not places for anyone to target specific groups in one-sided, anonymous and hateful attacks.
The Minnesota Daily is proud of our campus community’s persistent and passionate discussion of freedom of speech in recent months. Students, faculty and other community members have debated and protected First Amendment rights. We commend those who have done so respectfully and openly.
As the University’s newspaper since 1900, the Minnesota Daily has long played a crucial role in the exercise of freedom of speech and press at this school.
We are looking for solutions to keep individuals from inserting these flyers into issues of our newspaper after our distributors have delivered them. In the meantime, the Daily publicly denounces these attempts to reach our readers with spiteful and ignorant messages.
