At a handful of campuses where the ad ran, including Brown University in Providence, R.I., and UC Berkeley, protests erupted and both the papers and Horowitz have been denounced as racist. The Berkeley paper ran a front-page apology the next day, as did other student editors. At Brown, students were so angered they yanked thousands of copies of the free paper off the racks to limit circulation. At the same time, Horowitz has called those who support slavery reparations racist, and he condemns as censors student journalists who won't run his ad, arguing they are violating the First Amendment. UCSD Guardian editors deny Horowitz's claims of censorship, saying they have the right to reject all advertising they deem racist, sexist or in violation of their advertising policies, which include a ban on cigarette and liquor promotions.
Advertising is about business.
If they want to submit it to the news side, which they have not, then that's a different issue. That's about freedom of the press. Editors at the UCSD Guardian join the chorus of student journalists nationwide who accuse Horowitz of using them to grab the spotlight. And when staffers discussed whether to take the ad, they debated the issue of censorship before voting unanimously to reject it. The battle between student journalists and Horowitz has propelled him into the national spotlight.