MEMORANDUM To: Editors and Board of Directors of The Hoya From: Erika Cohen Derr on behalf of the Media Board Date: April 22, 2009 Re: Sanctions resulting from the April 17 hearing I write to inform you of the sanctions assigned by the Media Board as a result of the complaint filed by the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and AffirmativeAction, which resulted in the hearing held on Friday, April 17. As you know, theMedia Board requested a copy of your proposed initiatives in order to consider themeasures you plan to take as we assign sanctions. Upon reviewing your initiatives,we have made sanction decisions largely based on the specific points outlined inyour document. Below is a summary of the Media Board’s concerns about your proposed initiatives, followed by specific sanctions related to those points.1) The Media Board expressed concerns about the credentials of the proposedstaff development director and the potential ombudsperson. There is noinformation about the applicant pool for the staff development director.

SANCTION: The Hoya is required to submit to the Media Board positiondescriptions with stipend information, recruiting plans and eligibility criteriafor both the Staff Development Director and the proposed Ombudsperson,and demonstrate that the candidate selected for the Staff Development rolehas met the stated criteria.

2) The Media Board expressed concerns about the third party reviewer,specifically how will this reviewer be chosen and on what criteria.

SANCTION: The Hoya is required to include and pay for a third partyreviewer selected by the Media Board to participate in the external reviewprocess. This reviewer should have experience in professional journalism.

3) The Media Board expressed concerns about the lack of specific objectives for training under the guise of the Staff Development role.

SANCTION: All Hoya staff members – staff writers and editors – arerequired to participate in diversity training and ethics training by October 1,2009. Anyone who does not meet this requirement will be ineligible to writefor The Hoya. Following the fall 2009 semester, training must be offered toall new staff on a per semester basis so that new staff can fulfill thisrequirement. Ethics training should be conducted by a professional

journalist. We recommend that the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equityand Affirmative Action play a central role in developing and/or conductingthe training. We also suggest that The Hoya engage with studentorganizations that represent minority communities in planning trainings,readership focus groups and surveys.

4) Revenues from the April Fool's edition are not clearly listed, so it is unclear how this will support the conceived program.

SANCTION: The Hoya must submit exact revenue amounts from the AprilFool’s Edition by April 27, 2009. These funds will be appropriated by theMedia Board immediately and held in escrow to pay for the resultingcommunity building program.

5) The final points of the memo are vague and do not specify objectives or actionsteps. Similarly, no individual students have stepped forward to claimresponsibility for writing the articles included in the April Fool’s Edition.

SANCTION: The Media Board has determined that because The Hoya hasfailed to put specific, actionable steps in place to demonstrably change theculture of their organization and fulfill the high expectations that accompanythe claim as “the Georgetown University newspaper of record,” the bid tobecome independent should be delayed by one year to accommodate aprobationary period during which these sanctions can be enforced and actionsteps can be taken.

The Media Board requires that progress on all of the above sanctions should be presented in bi-monthly reports beginning September 18, 2009.Should you wish to appeal this decision, you should take the following steps.Advise me in writing of your appeal, articulating your concerns and the groundsupon which you are appealing. Upon receipt in writing of a request for appeal, Iwill send the appeal to a committee composed of the Vice President of StudentAffairs, the president of the Faculty Senate and the president of the GeorgetownUniversity Student Association or their designates. As we are nearing the end of the semester, should you decide to pursue the appeals process, I will advise theappeals committee of the urgent nature of this matter, and encourage them toaddress it before the end of the academic year. Should you wish to discuss this further, please convey any questions or communication to the Media Board through me at elc7@georgetown.edu or (202)687-3704. Cc: Rosemary Kilkenny, Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity andAffirmative Action