There are two distinct pictures of Morgan State University campus media adviser Denise Brown.
One is that of a passionate advocate for student speech, guiding the student newspaper and yearbook to substantial improvements over the past six years. But the other, painted by school administrators, is that of an undisciplined employee who flouted authority and misused privileges.
Those pictures are directly at odds in the wake of Morgan's recent decision not to renew Brown's contract, a move that outraged students and caught the attention of organizations that defend campus speech.
Brown says she was let go last month because she backed student reporters after they published five editorials in late February that were critical of Morgan administrators.
"I plowed everything I had into working with the students," Brown said from her home near the Northeast Baltimore campus. "The problem is that the people in charge don't know journalism. They just don't think they've done anything wrong."
Students expressed frustration and disappointment at the university's treatment of Brown.
"I think she got a raw deal," said Ryan Marshall, a 2009 graduate who has written for the newspaper and yearbook and produces a weekly television news broadcast for the Morgan campus. "A lot of politics is about control, and they feel they can have more control over the content of the newspaper with her out of the way."
Marshall said Brown worked tirelessly to recruit students to the publications, to find money for equipment and educational conferences, and to help reporters with articles. But Morgan officials said that Brown was regularly reprimanded for insubordination and misuse of her university credit card for purchases such as an iPod, theater tickets and a Chicago boat tour (all of which she has repaid). Her failure to meet with superiors in the wake of the editorials, they said, was the last straw.
"She was more or less out of control," said Morgan spokesman Clinton Coleman.
Recardo Perry, the university's vice president for student affairs, said any suggestion that administrators are trying to control student speech is "bogus," calling the accusations "a ploy, the fulcrum on which to reverse a personnel decision."
But the case has raised questions at the Student Press Law Center and at College Media Advisers, a professional association that recently censured Morgan for its treatment of Brown.
