(March 18, 2026)

The Criterion has recently faced scrutiny in regards to the overrepresentation of republican activity on campus. Readers are right to criticize this. The Editorial Board at the Criterion does report more on republican activity. Why is that?

This is what is happening on campus. Generally speaking, events that promote progressive ideology are few and far between. There are two registered clubs on Presence that have a left political lean: the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and Allies Representing Progressive Policies (ARPP). The Political Science club is required to be non-partisan, as per their constitution.

YDSA has existed since the end of last semester and we covered one of their events–a vigil for people who have been killed by ICE. ARPP has either not held any events or made their events known to us.

There are, however, three republican leaning clubs on campus. That doesn’t include faith-based clubs like Ratio Christi that invite anti-same-sex-marriage speakers to our campus, which if it did would put that 2:3 ratio closer to 1:5.

The Criterion reports on what is happening and what students are doing–organizing, outreach, etc. This means that the groups that are more active on campus get more coverage.

Turning Point is one of the most active political clubs on campus. They table weekly, hold several events throughout the year and those events draw relatively large crowds. The Criterion can not and will not force stories to appear out of thin air which do not cover anything.

This may be viewed as us giving preference to right-leaning clubs on campus, when in reality, reporters are constrained by what is available. If there isn’t another side to cover, how can the Criterion be expected to cover it?

This is not a call to action for the left-leaning students on campus to rise up and organize because that would be unethical for the Criterion to suggest our readers behave in a certain way. This is, however, a call to attention about the imbalance in our coverage as a result of the imbalanced representation on campus.

Furthermore, two things are obvious from this criticism. First, the critics are clearly not reading the stories about these clubs all the way through. Second, these students appear to only want to shoot the messenger as opposed to direct their vitriol more accurately. The Criterion is not a talking head for the school, any political party or even ourselves.

We cover what CMU students do. If there is minimal activity in left-leaning clubs we can’t cover it. If there are only two clubs attempting to balance that scale, we can only report on what they do. We seek news and report it. We refuse to fabricate and we can’t make something out of nothing.

Our news section set a goal at the beginning of last semester to cover underdog stories. We have covered protests, GSA events, issues with recycling, equitable food access and more–all things that could be considered progressive or left-leaning. Because they’re diffused into several different clubs and organizations across campus, there is no collective “democrat” front to associate with them with. The right-leaning clubs are simply more organized and work better together.

The Criterion can’t be expected to force clubs together or tell them to organize with one another.  We are not a club facilitator organization. We are not the movers and shakers. We seek news and report it.

We are the voice of the students.

If students feel like their voices are not being represented in the Criterion, then it’s likely because their voice is not being represented more broadly on campus.