Dear Reader,
As you flip through this issue, you’ll see articles ranging from a feature on the haunted history of Poc to an Op-Ed on Deerfield’s Health Center policies. What most readers don’t notice, however, are the articles missing from the page — the articles that need to be rewritten, reworded, or revised.
Every month, we postpone articles because we want to spend a little more time with them — either to make them more cogent and comprehensive, or, more importantly, to minimize harm. “Minimiz[ing] Harm,” a tenant of the National Scholastic Press Association’s Model Code of Ethics, means understanding the impact of our words on those around us. It means recognizing that our words can have unintended consequences despite our best intentions.
For example, using the passive voice when describing sexual violence shields the perpetrator from guilt and blame. The phrase “The situation was taken advantage of” erases the perpetrator from the story. In comparison, “Mr. X took advantage of the situation” highlights that the harm was inflicted by a particular person.
At the Scroll, our words have power, for better or worse.
This September, we planned to publish results from a student life survey conducted last year. However, after discussing the data with the administration and Ms. Naughton, we decided to postpone our broadsheet. Our intention for publishing the broadsheet was to normalize such discussions of student life on campus. However, the survey questions and the methodology were not nuanced when we first sent the survey out. For one, it defined bullying and sexual harrassment too narrowly, and publishing such responses could have misrepresented and misled the student body. Moreover, by drawing attention to specific communities in our data, such as non-binary students, we might have risked inadvertently exposing or “outing” them. We need to take time to clean the data, reword the questions, and reframe our results before presenting them. Given the amount of revisions we need to implement, the broadsheet will end up being a long-term project.
Likewise, this summer, in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, we drafted an article on contraceptive access at Deerfield. However, we had to reconsider and rewrite the article because of privacy concerns and how community reactions could affect existing services at the health center. We wanted to make sure our words were precise, accurate, and minimized harm.
Furthermore, this issue contains an Op-Ed by Abby Tang ’25 on respect for student privacy in dorms. The article was originally supposed to be published in May 2022 but was postponed to this issue. We wanted Abby to acquire more quotes from the Student Life Office to ensure we were not misrepresenting current policies or creating more confusion.
Every issue, we scrutinize our words, we consider different stakeholders and their concerns, and we admit to our mistakes. We try to do more good than harm.
As cliché as it sounds, with great power comes great responsibility. As a school-sponsored club, we have the freedom to publish what we want. Our previous volumes have covered Sonya O’Donnell’s sexual discrimination lawsuit, instances of blackface in old yearbooks, and rebukes of Dr. Austin’s policy of “principled neutrality.”
At the same time, writing what we want means we are responsible for the implications and consequences of our words — in other words, we must reduce harm.
As the National Scholastic Press Association Model Code of Ethics said, “Student journalists have an inherent obligation in decision making to consider the heritage of their news medium, the values of the school community, … and best interests of readers/listeners/viewers.”
The paper you are holding in your hands has the ability to shape narratives at Deerfield; it is a powerful medium of communication. We hope that you will join us on this journey as we aim to “do good.” Reach out to us, write for us, and hold us accountable.
Warmly,
Sunshine 냈懃而