West Virginia Campus Explodes Over Naming of Rape Victims : Privacy: Marshall University’s student newspaper is at the center of a debate over freedom of the press and sensitivity to ordeal.

When his office telephone rings at Marshall University’s student newspaper these days, Editor Kevin Melrose stiffens and eyes it as if it might bite.

It can. On the line could be Ms. magazine, which has been clamoring for an interview. Or it could be yet another student condemning him. Worst of all, it could be the woman who called anonymously last month.

Melrose still shudders.

“She said she was a concerned mother,” he said. “She said she hoped I’d be raped. She said that’d be justice in her mind.”

Such is the level of emotion on the 13,000-student Marshall campus, where The Parthenon newspaper this fall adopted a policy of printing both accusers’ and suspects’ names in rape cases.

In doing so, the paper and its editor have become the fulcrum of an impassioned debate over freedom of the press, privacy and sensitivity to the ordeal of rape victims.

“This institution’s really rumbling,” said university President J. Wade Gilley.

He led the condemnation of The Parthenon’s new policy and accused it of having a “smut mentality.”

Gilley’s criticisms, and a later move to shift control of the newspaper, have obscured questions that have troubled student editors and their professional counterparts: Should the names of rape victims, or alleged rape victims, be made public? And is it an editor’s decision to make?

Melrose introduced the policy Sept. 22 in a front-page editorial. He was backed up by the newspaper’s editorial board, which voted 4-3 in favor. Its only female member voted yes.

Also on Page 1 was a police story identifying a woman who told city police she was raped early Sept. 13. No names have been printed since.

Melrose said the newspaper wanted to reduce the stigma associated with hiding a victim’s name and to be fair to both the accused and the accuser.

Reaction was swift and fierce.

Condemnation calls poured in to The Parthenon, and a columnist at odds with Melrose’s decision quit. Women’s groups held a candlelight vigil for rape victims they said had been violated twice.

Editorial columns in area newspapers were filled with pros and cons. Many writers worried that printing names would deter women from reporting rapes.

“We women are so pleased that the great Patriarch”--the 21-year-old Melrose--”has come forward to save us from ourselves,” Huntington resident Janine A. Fout wrote last month.

Both the student and faculty senates, in uncharacteristic agreement, bitterly denounced The Parthenon.

Student government President Taclan B. Romey said a student newspaper with no accountability shouldn’t be subsidized by mandatory student fees. Students must pay $12 per year to support the newspaper.

“If people don’t agree with what The New York Times prints, they can stop buying the paper,” said Romey, 23, a senior. “But here, we’re forced to pay for it.”

Withholding rape victims’ names has been common practice for years among most newspapers and broadcasters, including the Associated Press.

John P. Consoli, managing editor of the trade journal Editor & Publisher, said he knows of no count of American papers that do name names, “but it’s an extremely small percentage.”

The weekly Shelton (Wash.) Journal has a 26-year policy of using the names of rape accusers during trial coverage only.

“If you withhold one name, the presumption of innocence goes out the window,” Editor Henry Gay said. “If you say, ‘This is a victim,’ you’re saying the defendant is guilty.”

In 1990, the Des Moines Register published the experiences of rape victim Nancy Ziegenmeyer, who had come forward. The articles put many journalists at odds over how to handle rape reporting.

When William Kennedy Smith was tried for sexual assault in Florida last year, NBC-TV, The New York Times and The Globe tabloid drew criticism when they ran accuser Patricia Bowman’s name before she granted an interview to ABC-TV.

None of these organizations answer to another authority. The Parthenon does.

On Oct. 16, the university president formed a new student publications board to supervise the newspaper, the yearbook and student radio station WMUL-FM. Previously, the journalism department was in charge.

Jurisdiction for selecting new editors now will be distributed among students, staff, professors and Gilley appointees.

“We’ve got the president of a major university who seems to be completely oblivious of what the First Amendment is about,” said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Melrose and most of the school’s journalism professors agree that Gilley’s move dances close to censorship. But Gilley says he only made the publication more accountable to the academic community, and editorial policy will be unfettered.

Talk has circulated about cutting off the student fee, but Gilley has ruled that out for the moment.

The new overseer board, as yet unnamed, has angered journalism professors.

“I see it as retaliatory,” said Harold Shaver, head of Marshall’s journalism department. He charged Gilley threatened his job for speaking out on the affair, but later downplayed it; Gilley has said shortcomings in the journalism department contributed to The Parthenon’s poor judgment.

Others suggest that there must be some check on this student enterprise.

“A student newspaper is a learning experience,” said Donna Lee Cockrille, director of Marshall’s Women’s Center and a rape counselor. “It’s trying to do the right thing. But I’m opposed to playing with people’s lives for the sake of a learning experience.”

For Melrose, the opportunity to change attitudes outweighs the drawbacks.

“I wasn’t intending to be a ground breaker,” he said. “But I hope at least a small step has been taken. I don’t think it’s going to change the world. Well, we never said that we could. We’d just rather, what’s that saying, light one candle than curse the darkness.”