Editor, Daily Nexus,

I was a Nexus editor from 1994 to 1996 before I chaired the A.S. Public Safety Committee and am now a practicing attorney. This gives a somewhat unique perspective into the latest A.S.-Nexus squabble.

What today’s students should understand is that this is nothing new. A.S. tried to ban the Nexus outright in the 1980s, tried to claim the Nexus’ lock-in during my time to publish its own newspaper – thus guaranteeing favorable coverage – and, after I left, several A.S. members removed the Nexus from the morning racks and threw it away to keep people from reading the Nexus’ A.S. endorsements.

With exceptions, the Leg Council annually consists of ambitious proto-politicians who are desperate to “get something done” during their year in office, but have neither the patience nor the power to take on the adults and the deep-seated societal forces at the root of the problems facing the student body and Isla Vista community.

Every Leg Council, instead, finds it much easier to turn on their fellow students and to blame the media for all of its problems. Thus, the problem stops being racism, rising student fees or Isla Vista slumlords, and starts being about the Nexus’ coverage or advertisements.

Likewise, with exceptions, the Nexus is staffed by ambitious proto-journalists who treat every perceived slight as an attack on the very freedom of the press and our constitutional system writ large, thus creating a vicious cycle of A.S.-Nexus overreaction. Thankfully, the Nexus appears to have toned down its rhetoric this time around.

I applaud the A.S. President for vetoing the Leg Council’s stupid bill, the Nexus EIC for working privately rather than overreacting publicly and A.S.’s attorney for telling Leg Council to stop trying to break the law.

Lastly, I would advise all underclassmen to keep their eyes and ears open because if the next Leg Council doesn’t attack the Nexus, then the one after that will, and the one after that, and on and on.