The theft of about 4,000 copies of the Sept. 13 issue of The Daily Helmsman could be a violation of the First Amendment.
The newspapers were apparently stolen from racks across campus sometime Thursday. About 1,000 were found, stuffed into trash cans and dumpsters by the bundle, and about 3,000 more are still missing.
“This is definitely an intentional criminal act,” said Candy Justice, general manager of The Helmsman.
The Helmsman’s daily circulation is 9,500.
Destroying newspapers or interfering with people’s right or ability to read a newspaper is illegal, according to Mike Hiestand, an attorney for the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.
Hiestand said that faculty members, administrators or staff who disrupt reading of college newspapers could be found in violation of the First Amendment, which is a federal offense.
The First Amendment prohibits public universities, like The University of Memphis, and people acting on the universities’ behalf, from censoring their newspapers’ stories or hindering the papers’ publication as a way of punishing newspapers for their content.
Students who take large quantities of papers, even free newspapers, with the intention of keeping others from reading the newspaper, could be charged with theft or larceny, which are state crimes.
“Just because it’s free at the point of distribution, that doesn’t mean it’s always free,” Hiestand said. “People are paying for the paper with their student activity fees, like a pre-paid subscription to the paper. Taking more than your share is stealing.”
One of the racks in Meeman Hall had a full stack of papers around 12:30 p.m., but was completely empty by 1:30 p.m., according to Bob Willis, advertising manager for The Daily Helmsman.
Willis said the quick disappearance of 100 papers in one hour is “highly unusual.” The majority of people who pick up a copy of The Helmsman do so between 8 -11 a.m.
Some newspaper racks were completely empty early in the morning. One English major said the rack in Patterson Hall, which gets 800 papers a day, was empty by 9:30 a.m.
No copies of the Sept. 13 issue were found in the Richardson Towers rack, although several copies from the Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 issues were still there.
Other racks emptied Thursday include three in the Fogelman College, which get a combined total of 700 papers daily and three racks in the Administration Building, which get a total of 800 copies daily.
However, the rack in front of the Ned McWherter Library, which gets 500 copies daily, and the Humphreys School of Law’s rack, which gets 400 copies daily, were almost full around 6 p.m. Thursday.
Although the terrorist attacks earlier this week might prompt a higher demand for the newspaper, Justice said that the fact some racks were empty and some were full indicates the deliberate wiping out of certain racks.
“Considering how many buildings were systematically cleaned out of papers, this was obviously not just a random act of vandalism,” Justice said.
The Helmsman office received no threats or warnings the papers would be pilfered.
“While we haven’t had any direct threats, we did have one irate phone caller saying our coverage of Tuesday’s terrorist attack was unfair,” said L. Kate Crawford, editor in chief of The Helmsman.
Couriers Feng Yu and Chaohui Gong said they delivered all issues to all locations, and even finished early on Thursday.
“There is no way we forgot to deliver any papers,” Yu said.
Campus police were notified of the incident.
