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The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

The Student News Site of Colorado State University

The Rocky Mountain Collegian

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McWilliams: If you don’t feel represented, come work for us

Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it — there was a lot of political tension at Colorado State University this semester. There was the blackface incident and the response to it from University officials and students. There was the “Culture War” event, protests and other racial events on campus. These incidents plagued CSU’s reputation and upset many students and community members by the message these incidents sent.

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Even worse, students didn’t feel they had a proper outlet to share their opinions on these issues, creating movements like #NotProudToBe.

If you feel that your voice isn’t heard or represented by this campus, I encourage you to come to The Collegian and fix it. As this year’s opinion editor, I personally invite you to come work for this desk and share your opinion with the rest of CSU. If you don’t like how things look on this campus, fix it.

Our publication can only publish the voices that come to us.”

For the first two years I worked for this desk as a writer, the editors were right-leaning in their political beliefs. Along with that, we had a large spectrum of writers politically. You’d think that if you put so many opinionated people in one room for an hour each week to talk about politics, we’d rip each other’s throats out. However, it never came close to that — on the contrary, we loved it.

Last year’s opinion editor, Jayla Hodge, started working for The Collegian as a writer because she felt that she wasn’t being represented by CSU.

“I started writing for The Collegian because no one was writing about the issues I cared about or accurately captured my perspective, particularly as a Black woman and student on a predominantly white campus,” Hodge said. “I also found that the reporting was inaccurate when discussing different identities due to a lack of representation, and many students had come to distrust the paper.”

Chances are, if you’re feeling opinionated about a certain topic, so are many other students.”

I’m sad that diversity and representation aren’t as strong as they have been in years past, and that lack of representation has created tension between our publication and our community — and it needs to change. I’m not publishing this article as a plug; I’m asking you to make the change you wish to see on campus. We need marginalized voices to be heard in our community. 

Our publication can only publish the voices that come to us.

Two years ago, some students went to form their own publication, The Battering Ram, so their voices could be represented more at CSU. While forming another publication is one way to fix it, it isn’t the best way. The Collegian is an established, well-known publication on campus and throughout the City. We can give you the platform and space you need to express your views.

Chances are, if you’re feeling opinionated about a certain topic, so are many other students. As one of our past editors once said, no opinion is a bad opinion unless there’s nothing to back it up.

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I’ll save you the trouble of looking up the writers for The Collegian’s opinion section — the majority of us are left-leaning white women. If you’re okay with this paper, the one that represents CSU’s community, publishing most of its opinion pieces from left-leaning white women, then great. If just reading that sentence made you cringe, even a little bit, I encourage you to come to the newsroom.

Leta McWilliams can be reached at letters@collegian.com and on Twitter @LetaMcWilliams.

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When commenting on The Collegian’s website, please be respectful of others and their viewpoints. The Collegian reviews all comments and reserves the right to reject comments from the website. Comments including any of the following will not be accepted. 1. No language attacking a protected group, including slurs or other profane language directed at a person’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social class, age, physical or mental disability, ethnicity or nationality. 2. No factually inaccurate information, including misleading statements or incorrect data. 3. No abusive language or harassment of Collegian writers, editors or other commenters. 4. No threatening language that includes but is not limited to language inciting violence against an individual or group of people. 5. No links.
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