Last spring, some of our staff members noticed that large stacks of our April 2009 issue had gone missing overnight from newsstands in the Undergraduate Library and Hamilton Hall. Considering that this was during exams week, we at the Review doubted that they had all been taken legitimately. We had a long list of possible suspects with a motive to make our April 2009 issue disappear, as the issue had been highly critical of a number of individuals and campus groups. However, we had no evidence of anything.
Until now. One of the groups criticized in the issue was Students for a Democratic Society (“Chapel Hill Hooligans Strike Again”, p. 21). Facebook photos obtained by the Carolina Review show Ben Carroll, the president of Students for a Democratic Society and write-in candidate for Mayor of Chapel Hill, along with Daily Tar Heel columnist Dominic Powell and a third individual, Scott Williams, standing in a pile of destroyed copies of the April 2009 issue of Carolina Review drinking beer and painting their living room. Hundreds of copies of Carolina Review (paid for by your student fee money) were apparently destroyed.
Considering the newsworthiness of this behavior by a candidate for public office, CRdaily is publishing some of the photographs below in order to inform our readers that a mayoral candidate is involved in destroying property, suppressing freedom of the press and censoring dissenting opinions.
These photographs also show how members of Students for a Democratic Society are engaged in a sustained effort to suppress the first amendment rights of those who they disagree with. Last spring, the engaged in violence for political ends against speakers whom they disagreed with. This fall, the Daily Tar Heel was targeted and vandalized with a “special anti-racist issue” placed over their papers. The DTH reacted strongly, even reportedly calling the police and attacked the vandals on their editorial page. Now, we have a staff member from the Daily Tar Heel apparently engaged in even worse behavior.
Update: The students involved have been informed that a complaint has been filed against them in the UNC Honor Court system. The student attorney general will decide by the end of next week whether to file formal charges.
Far Right: Ben Carroll, SDS president and candidate for mayor of Chapel Hill.
Center: Dominic Powell, DTH columnist.
