A penny for Mr. Jefferson’s thoughts.

Earlier this year, the editors of The Cavalier Daily found themselves pondering the varying interpretations of the Founder’s views on free speech and a free press, as they wrestled—under national media scrutiny—with whether to publish a full-page ad denouncing the idea of America paying reparations for its long embrace of slavery.

The CD was targeted, along with more than 70 other college newspapers, by David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and a conservative columnist and TV commentator. Horowitz asked to buy space in each of the campus papers for an ad headlined "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea—and Racist Too."

Some papers published the ad, provoking protests from students and faculty outraged by Horowitz’s assertions. Among the more controversial "reasons" he gave to oppose reparations: black slaves and their descendants actually benefited from that "peculiar institution," today enjoying a standard of living far above that of most black Africans. Also, modern-day African-Americans already have received "trillions of dollars" in reparations, he argued, in the form of welfare payments and minority preferences for hiring, government contracts and college admissions. Students at Brown University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison trashed or burned copies of the campus papers to demonstrate their displeasure over the ad’s publication on those campuses.

However, most campus papers, including The Cavalier Daily, rejected the ad. The refusal drew accusations of censorship from Horowitz and fellow conservatives—but also from some professional journalists and supporters of the First Amendment. The flap got picked up in newspapers, magazines and radio and TV talk shows nationwide, with many portraying it as a clash between free speech and political correctness.

For CD editor-in-chief John Clark and other members of the managing board, the ad controversy got them national exposure, though not necessarily the kind they wanted barely a month into their yearlong tenure. Like many newspapers, the CD had no written policy on what ads would be acceptable.

"It was a perfectly legitimate opinion under the First Amendment, but the quality and purpose, the design of it, did not seem appropriate," Clark said recently in explaining why the editors refused Horowitz‘s offer to pay them $632 to publish his ad.

The CD published an editorial March 20 explaining the rejection, headlined: "Can’t buy a free press."

"We maintain that a free press is not obligated to print everything that comes across its in-box," the editorial said. "Yes, Horowitz’s views are protected under free speech, and he’s welcome to spread his opinions. This newspaper, however, maintains the right to publish content that in its editorial judgment it sees as accurate, fair and decent for its readers. The Cavalier Daily, like any respectable newspaper, is not some literary bathroom stall where any crackpot theory can be publicized for the world to read."

The CD’s rejection of the ad, and its editorial, drew letters of support from a number of students, including the president of the Black Student Alliance. But the paper was denounced by some conservative students and by alumni. Some alums shared Horowitz’s views, but others said they believed newspapers have a duty to publish all opinions, even unpopular and outrageous ones. A few accused the editors of deviating from the Jeffersonian quotation that has adorned the CD masthead for decades.

"The interpretation of the quote has changed," Clark said in response. The current generation of student editors believe that they should not be afraid to search out the truth, nor yield in their efforts to prevent error "so long as we are reasonable people," he explained. That means they gather information and opinions, then sift through them and present those deemed by the editors to be most relevant to their student readers. They had not considered until then, Clark said, that there could be another interpretation—that Americans should be willing to air differing opinions, even inflammatory ones, and trust their reason to figure out who is right.

"A lot of black students don’t even read the paper," the editor-in-chief explained. "A lot of minorities don’t trust the paper. A lot of people think we edit stories in a way that harms minorities. I don’t think that’s true—and it’s definitely not intentional—but there’s that perception, so we had to think how that ad would play to those perceptions."

The paper had refused to run an ad a few years ago that denied the occurrence of the Holocaust, the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews during World War II, but had published at least one anti-abortion ad recently that Clark said appeared to be "factual."

"You have to weigh the pros and cons of unqualified free speech and social good," Clark said. "If no one reads our paper, then it doesn’t matter the opinions in it."

Eventually, Clark and the CD editors forged a compromise that probably satisfied no one, but which they believe remains true to the cause of free speech. Appearing on a national radio show with Horowitz to defend the refusal of student editors to run the ad, Clark offered to publish an op-ed piece in the CD opposing reparations if Horowitz would submit one. It ran April 3 under the headline: "America owes no debt to blacks." Absent from the piece was the assertion that welfare amounted to reparations and some of Horowitz’s more provocative rhetoric, but he tailored his argument to his U.Va. audience by portraying a leading proponent of reparations, Randall Robinson, as a Jefferson hater. The publication of Horowitz’s toned-down views nonetheless drew fire from some students, who accused the editors of caving in.

"The one thing I learned this year is that perception matters more than actual intention," said Clark. "People perceive liberal bias when we don’t run the ad. When we run the op-ed, people perceive spinelessness....It definitely was a sticky place to be for a couple months." Particularly disappointing to the CD editors, Clark said, was the criticism they got from professional journalists —some of whom work, he contends, for publications that routinely reject such controversial ads.

With at least one copycat ad making the rounds of college newspapers in late spring—this one by a conservative woman’s group attacking feminist "myths" —and others likely to come, the CD editors spent the summer trying to come up with a written policy to guide them through future sticky decisions in the ensuing months and years. As drafted, the CD "reserves the right to reject any ad for any reason," to label it clearly as a paid advertisement and to give the ad revenue to a nonprofit organization.

"If I could do it all over again," Clark said, "I think we might run the ad, put ‘Paid Advertisement’ around it, and donate all the proceeds to the Thomas Jefferson Center for Freedom of Speech. That’s a tactic I’ve never heard of in journalism."

(The Princeton University student paper tried a similar tactic, printing Horowitz’s ad while denouncing it in an editorial and pledging to donate the ad money to the local chapter of the civil rights Urban League. Indignant that the student editors had called his views racist, Horowitz refused to pay for the ad.)

"The problem with devising a policy is we just don’t want to tie the hands of an editor who’s supposed to be able to make a thoughtful and balanced decision," Clark said. "Where do you draw the line?"