Almost Entire NYU Paper Staff Resigns Amid Anger Over New Adviser

Correction: This story originally reported that the entire editorial staff of NYU's student newspaper resigned. Since then, three members of the newspaper staff have said they did not resign. According to the News' website, its editorial department included almost 50 students. Patch regrets the error.

WEST VILLAGE, NY — Nearly the entire editorial staff of the Washington Square News, NYU's student newspaper, resigned Monday due to grievances related to the new editorial adviser, Kenna Griffin.

The NYU student newspaper posted an extensive article Monday under the byline "WSN Staff," apparently on behalf of the 43 students who resigned. Prior to the resignations, nearly 50 editorial staffers worked for the paper.

The article explained the decision to resign, accusing Griffin of 22 incidents of inappropriate and insensitive behavior and running the paper with little or no input from students. They also listed 15 demands to the school for the staff's return to work.

Griffin did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

At the beginning of September, the paper's editor-in-chief was fired without warning on the advice of Griffin, according to the Washington Square News. The paper said that Griffin's role with the staff was never specified and the amount of power she had never got clarified.

In the three weeks since the editor-in-chief was fired, Griffin took on a larger role within the paper. Staffers repeatedly asked her to soften language when delivering critiques, but she refused each time.

"This made it very difficult to accept her criticism, as well as to function normally with the new factor of fear of Dr. Griffin," the NYU paper wrote Monday. "This led to a vicious cycle in which we could not please Dr. Griffin and so she would lash out at us, which in turn would lead us to produce poorer work which did not help."

A focal point of the staffer's anger towards Griffin related to her "increasing disrespect to WSN's Black staff members, leading to one staff member choosing to speak out and accuse Dr. Griffin of intolerance."

According to Monday's article from the paper, she took the criticism poorly and argued there was no proof of racism. Griffin went on to suggest that a Black student write an op-ed explaining her feelings about Breonna Taylor's murder.

"We are not comfortable continuing to work in an environment that trivializes Black voices when they speak up and then uses them for personal gain. This was the straw that broke the collective camel's back."

Among the 15 demands the staff made in order to return to work are Griffin's immediate resignation, Washington Square News not getting labeled as an independent news publication since it intertwines with NYU's journalism department and is funded by the school, and that the editor-in-chief cannot be fired without the editorial staff's democratic vote on the matter.

To read the rest of the demands and the entire explanation of the staff's decision to resign, you can visit the Washington Square News' website.

"The announcement today by some members of the Washington Square News editorial staff that they were resigning their positions came as a complete surprise to the University," NYU spokesperson John Beckman told Patch in a statement. "The WSN operates autonomously, for all intents and purposes: while NYU provides office space for the paper and some financial advice and support for their operations, the WSN has complete editorial discretion."

"The WSN has been around for a very long time, and we do think it is important for there to be a journalistic voice at a university. Our expectation is that the students must sort out this internal dispute between themselves, their advisor (who is a person independent of NYU and is paid with WSN revenues), and their publication board, perhaps by enlisting the counsel and assistance of those with journalism or college journalism experience," Beckman added. "If there is a way that the University can help, we would; however, we would want to do so in a manner that ensures that such assistance does not impinge upon or raise any specter of doubt about the paper's editorial independence."

Here is the full list of 22 incidents of Griffin's behavior that the Washington Square News included in their article explaining the mass staff resignation:

• "Belittled the entire staff, with inappropriate behavior for an editorial advisor to students in a way definitely not how a professional should speak to other young professionals.
• Repeatedly stated that anyone offended by her words was simply being sensitive and implied that if someone is offended by her statements, they should not be a journalist.
• Pressured an editor to reveal their “real name” after the editor disclosed their non-cisgender gender identity. This is transphobic rhetoric and behavior.
• Criticized Opinion article disclaimers, calling them unnecessary and incorrect. Opinion article disclaimers are necessary for legal purposes.
• Demanded stories and content without regard to reporters’ personal safety at protests and students’ time and responsibilities beyond WSN, and demanded articles on our rest days.
• Stated that if staff did not meet with her one-on-one individually, following the EIC’s termination, she would understand that we would not want to continue working for WSN. Did not respond to emails and other attempts to schedule meetings for weeks.
• Our Managing Editor assumed the responsibilities of EIC and Managing Editor without the title or power, despite asking for formal recognition.
• Refused to concede that people interviewed and photographed would want to be anonymous for safety reasons.
• Dismissed trigger warnings on articles on sexual assault and marked them unnecessary.
• Mentioned inappropriate and confidential information about staff members’ personal lives.
• Stated that racism is a matter of subjectivity.
• Violated the WSN Constitution multiple times including several instances in which she attempted to merge the business and editorial sections of WSN.
• An editor stood up to Dr. Griffin’s demands and refused to edit out the word “murder” from our article about Breonna Taylor’s murder at the hands of Louisville cops. Dr. Griffin demanded the Managing Editor discipline them, as she “didn’t want to have a full deal publicly.”
• Spoke terribly about our previous EIC to every other editor immediately after he was fired and asked leading questions, presumably to find justification for firing him.
• Lied about events and people’s actions and characters to different editors.
• Minimized an Opinion Editor’s role and pieces and did not include them in discussions about the Opinion section. Disclosed that she only wanted one Opinion Editor.
• Demanded our organization “professionalize.” Dr. Griffin messaged editors to reprimand them for profanity used in intra-staff conversations despite regularly swearing in personal calls against staff.
• Categorized ‘Under the Arch’, WSN’s magazine, as a money maker. Attempted to demand ‘UTA’ cater to business needs to create content, directly violating the WSN Constitution.
• Criticized our News Desk for using emails or text interviews and NYU statements, despite that practice being part of journalism standards.
• Blamed WSN for NYU institutions refusing to talk to us.
• Corrected our use of “spokesperson” to “spokesman,” ignoring the need for gender-neutral language in reporting, mandatory for the paper and outlined in one of our guides.
• Boasted about improving our coverage online when she had no involvement with the articles she boasted about."