On Jan. 26, the Observer received a student submission for our “Injustice and Inequalities Inside Augie” publication. An interview was conducted with the student to obtain more information about why they resigned from the Student Government Association (SGA). The Observer included this submission in the magazine, but after the speech was published online and in print, concerns about its accuracy were brought to our attention.
The Observer reached out to SGA members and discovered the facts of the student’s speech, the reason for their resignation and their reading of the speech to the SGA were all inaccurate. The Observer is publishing documents sent to us by SGA that provide better context to the student’s resignation.
The Observer conducts fact-checking processes on every news story we publish, and we apologize for not taking the same action on this submitted speech. The Observer did not reach out to SGA at the time of publishing because the speech was a student submission and the subsequent interview with the student did not place blame on SGA and instead focused on issues affecting international students.
The Observer will continue to elevate honest voices that shed light on issues affecting the student body. After a careful investigation the Observer will keep the speech off our site to prevent circulating misinformation. Unfortunately, the magazine has already been dispersed across campus, and we ask the community to focus on the other submissions and Observer staff reporting.
-The Observer managing staff
Observer Week J2 (SGA minutes)