Dear reader,
What do we do when we, as individuals, disagree with an opinion? We respond with counter arguments. We reflect on them and consider whether they have merit and just might justify shifting our own opinions. We refuse to endorse them entirely.
What do we do when we, as a journalistic institution, are presented with articles containing opinions that many individuals in our readership may disagree with? We publish them.
As the new Editor-in-Chief of the Scroll XCIX, I have worked alongside the members of the outgoing Board to publish a collection of thoughtful, interesting, and compelling articles in this April issue you hold in your hands. While working on this publication, I have had to make my first difficult decision in my new role.
The Scroll is one of the first school newspapers among our peer institutions to publish op-eds concerning the ongoing Israel–Hamas war. This issue features two different perspectives: John Woo ’26’s “Appeasement for Peace” and Oliver Browne ’24’s “On Palestine, or the Violence of Colonization.”
As a journalistic institution, we are committed to publishing opinions even when many of our readers may find them objectionable. We are exceptionally proud to be on the vanguard of supporting free speech, and we hope our op-ed page will lead our peer school newspapers to follow suit.
In publishing these articles, we hope to model responsible civic discourse about a subject that is currently dividing college campuses across the nation. You may disagree with some of the statements that Woo and Browne present. This, in my opinion, is healthy.
In our October issue, as an associate editor, I suggested a revised mission statement for the Scroll. As a part of it, I wrote, “We strive to show everyone involved in our paper that every story, no matter how mundane or eminent, opinionated or controversial, can become a story worth telling when the telling is rooted in both passion and compassion.”
After grappling with the question of whether or not to publish these two articles as Editor-in-Chief, I stand by that statement. Every story can be worth telling, even when we don’t agree with the specific lens that the author takes.
Our opinion section exists to empower students to engage in and model responsible civic discourse. Unlike in casual conversation, opinion articles trim out vagaries, spur-of-the-moment emotional outbursts, and grand but unsubstantiated claims. In their place are deliberate word choices, compelling interviews, and parenthetical citations. Good opinion articles dig into the truth and create compelling narratives while allowing concessions to other perspectives. Good opinion articles back every claim with factual evidence and logical reasoning. Good opinion articles may leave readers disagreeing with claims made by their writers.
Although we may be a student newspaper, we are a newspaper nonetheless. As a newspaper, we have a duty to publish thoughtful, coherent opinions. In this instance, I know that Woo and Browne have dedicated countless hours to researching the topic at hand and carefully crafting their arguments. From the conversations I have had with both writers, I can say with complete confidence and no hyperbole that every single sentence, word, and comma is carefully chosen to help convey their arguments. Every word they say is one they stand behind and every opinion they present is one they want to clearly communicate to the Deerfield community. At school meeting on April 24, Dr. Austin urged us to exercise “conscientiousness of expression,” which entails “developing the skills of speaking with consideration and temperateness and writing with precision and accuracy.” I can promise Woo and Browne have done exactly that.
The Scroll, like Deerfield Academy as a whole, stands behind the tenets of institutional neutrality to empower our writers and facilitate discourse. Our editorial board refrains from picking sides. As Editor-in-Chief, it is entirely antithetical to my responsibilities to allow my own opinions, or even the opinions of those I converse with, to shape our opinion page.
We have a duty to publish the opinion of anyone brave enough to attach their name to their writing. And in this increasingly polarized climate, where writing an opinion in a student newspaper could potentially cause an author to lose friends, become the victim of harassment, or lose a job opportunity later in life, attaching your name to your opinion is an act of bravery. Woo and Browne have demonstrated tremendous “courage of expression,” to use Dr. Austin’s words from April 24.
That said, we will not publish hate speech. We will not tolerate a call for the genocide of Jewish people or the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We stand in vehement opposition to bigotry. Yet I understand the issues surrounding free speech are never that simple.
It is not my place as Editor-in-Chief to draw that line. So instead, I will tread carefully and compassionately into murky waters. By publishing opinions that fall in what is essentially the demilitarized zone of modern political thought – that landmine-ridden, potentially lethal stretch between what society deems acceptable and unacceptable – I hope to push people to expand their worldview. Question what is “correct.” I don’t care whether the answers you find leave your worldview radically changed or further cemented. Adopt “toleration of expression,” as Dr. Austin said on April 24, reading with “an assumption of good faith on the part of peers who, like all of us, are doing their best to find the right words for the right occasion.”
In light of the recent Deerfield Forum, I find it appropriate to quote a 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines, which outlines freedom of speech in high schools. While we, as students of a private school, don’t have those same Constitutional protections, I still believe it provides a compelling moral argument that applies to Deerfield and the Scroll. The Court decision said, “Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk, and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom – this kind of openness – that is the basis of our national strength.”
Of course, this freedom of expression cannot be unilateral. While Browne and Woo have already expressed their opinions, you also have the right to express yours. You have the right to rebut, logically or emotionally. You have the right to agree and add supporting evidence to an author’s argument. You have the right to hold entirely different opinions from everyone you have ever talked to, the right to endorse the argument while disapproving of the rhetoric.
So, Deerfield, I invite you to email me your opinions. In our next issue, we will be opening a Letter to the Editor section specifically addressing responses to the two Israel–Palestine articles and the broader Israel–Hamas war. They can be one sentence comments or fact-laden paragraphs. They can be anything, as long as they are factual, well-written, and coming from a genuine and compassionate place.
Above all, we owe it to ourselves and to the greater community to have these conversations, to write the next chapter in Deerfield’s heritage. So please, Deerfield, be respectful when reading the opinions of those you disagree with. Be confident enough to speak out while showing enough intellectual humility to know when it is your turn to listen. Be brave enough to write. I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours faithfully in writing,
Anna Jo Guerrini