The Paladin Report (September 2025)
"The climate around controversy and campus dialogue has gotten a lot worse," says Carter Ozburn, Editor-in-Chief of The Paladin.
Welcome to The Paladin Report — a new monthly publication investigating key aspects of Furman’s administration, academic culture, and student life.
This month, we focus on one student’s perspective on Furman’s climate for free speech and freedom of the press.
The following is an edited version of an exclusive interview with Carter Ozburn, the Editor-in-Chief of The Paladin.
We hope you enjoy the insight.
👋Tell me about yourself.
I’m Carter. I’m a Junior Political Science and Business Finance major and the Editor-in Chief of The Paladin newspaper. I’ve loved editing The Paladin and bringing student voices to a wider readership through formalized media, instead of platforms like social media or Yik Yak where discourse tends to be poorly thought through or inflammatory.
I’m also a member of the Riley Institute advanced team and an On Discourse student ambassador. Three members of The Paladin editorial board are student ambassadors for On Discourse, and we’re all very committed to fostering dialogue across differences. I know that’s a catch phrase, but it really is true—we are dedicated to bringing together folks from different backgrounds and who hold different opinions to have real conversations.
📰Tell me about The Paladin. What does it cover? What ideally is it doing for campus and for students?
We have six different sections: News, Opinions, Arts, Campus, and Culture, Sports, Knightlife—which is our newest section, a kind of column-based section with different forms of media—and The Horse, our satire section. The paper, of course, serves the student body, as well as the faculty, staff, and even the wider Greenville community. I know many people at The Post and Courier read our work. We had a Post and Courier investigative journalist come and speak to our editorial board two weeks ago.
Our Opinion section in particular reflects the views of the students, as well as the views of the Furman administration, alumni, or faculty that want to speak to students. It’s a way, especially in its print form, to communicate directly to students that’s unlike anything else on campus. Platforms like Yik Yak and social media typically consist of students talking to their own networks or friend groups in different niches of campus. I think we cut through that and play a crucial role in uniting students, or at least in getting them talking about certain campus and political issues.
🧭How do you approach news, what kind of news you’re looking for, and what perspective you’re trying to bring to it?
We cover Furman news, but we also pay attention to national news that disproportionately affects Furman students. We try to get creative with our news coverage—if a Cultural Life Program (CLP) touches on a controversial political issue, we’ll cover the CLP and the wider political issue at the same time.
We also strive to play a fact-checking role, and help inform students who might not know a lot of background going into or coming out of a certain CLP. We work to contextualize wider campus or administrational changes as well, situating them in their place on the national stage. Our primary goal is to educate students about Furman issues, while incorporating them into wider narratives when we can.
🏛️How does covering the administration go? Does the admin generally cooperate, or do you sometimes have to dig a little deeper than they’re willing to show you?
On the whole, the administration is not very cooperative. I hate saying that, and I wish they were more cooperative, because we’re not out to get them. They were extremely uncooperative, for example, when we were investigating the Bain consulting group last semester, really at every level. They’ve also been somewhat uncooperative regarding certain federal changes. Many students were looking for answers about the future of DEI or the future of international students on campus, and they offered none beyond the generalized statements issued to the student body.
There seems to be a general disdain, not for student journalism necessarily, but for the voice of the students.
I think the admin should be more accountable to student voices, but unfortunately their lack of accountability feels like the rule and not the exception.
🔍What undergirds the reluctance to be forthcoming with students? Is it a general reluctance, or is it case specific?
I think it’s often case specific. President Davis has been very cooperative with The Paladin and has been very supportive of our work, which I appreciate. I do think they’re concerned about admissions—they’re concerned that people on tours will pick up The Paladin and see writing critical of the school. Everyone at The Paladin loves Furman and I don’t think we’re critical just to be critical. We’re just trying to make it a better place.
⚖️The Paladin is characterized as an independent student newspaper. What does that actually mean?
It means we’re student-run to a crazy degree, which I think is awesome. We have a lot of leeway budget-wise and advising-wise. I personally consult with a lot of advisors before publishing certain controversial pieces, but I think we have the kind of independence that allows us to bring to light things that we couldn’t otherwise about Furman and the administration. It especially allows our Opinion and News sections to flourish without waiting for any sort of administrative approval.
📜Why do you consult the administration on controversial pieces? Do they have any kind of veto power? Or is it just a precaution?
It’s more of a precaution. They’ve never expressed a veto of any article we’ve run. They’ve expressed criticisms of certain articles before, but they support student journalism as a whole, which I appreciate. I think they especially applaud our promoting discourse between different student groups and attempting to educate students on the wider campus culture, which I think is great.
💬What are some examples of back and forths in the opinion section on hot issues?
There are two articles in the works right now concerning President Davis’s email on the death of Charlie Kirk, which represent differing views. Last semester, particularly with the wider federal changes in higher education, if we had a piece arguing for one position, we tried to find someone to represent an opposing perspective. It’s important to us to create an opinion section that challenges both sides.
🧠What disqualifies an article from being healthy and civil? What’s the difference between being controversial and being unhealthy?
Usually the only way we would disqualify an article for publication is if we thought it was not factual—if the writer was making claims that they were not backing up or attributing claims to sources that didn’t exist. Saying “an anonymous faculty member said this or that” won’t fly.
It can be difficult to determine what counts as facts and what qualifies as evidence. Though that can get into the weeds, I think it’s important to evaluate writers based on their own evidence. I think it’s particularly important today when people generally don’t fact check enough or provide sufficient evidence for their claims, especially on social media or in casual conversation about political topics. I think it’s an important role we play.
✍️When I was at Furman, I felt like the writing culture among the students was weak. Is there a poverty of writing at Furman?
I think there’s a poverty of writing across the nation. I worked in the House of Representatives this summer, and many of the interns were using artificial intelligence to generate their research and essays. And I was like “We’re at the House of Representatives! What are you doing?” The advent of AI and the decline of writing skills still boggles me sometimes.
At The Paladin, our organization is very top-down. Our editorial board operates at a completely different level and scale than our wider writer base. But I’ve always viewed that as on us as editors: it’s on us to recruit writers and get people excited. That was the impetus behind starting the Knightlife section and pursuing more columns, podcasts, and different forms of media. We want to capture more readership and in turn interest more people in writing.
🗣️How would you describe the speech climate on campus?
I think there are two ways people think of free speech on a college campus. One is to say, “Oh yes, free speech! I can say whatever I want. I’m constantly inundated with new ideas, I’m gaining critical thinking skills from my classes, and I’m focusing on discerning who I am. I might make some mistakes along the way, but I’m still gonna speak freely.”
The other dimension is this growing fear, especially among recent college graduates, that what they say is being closely monitored by everyone on social media, and maybe even by future employers. That really hurts The Paladin, especially concerning wider political issues. My fear when publishing controversial articles isn’t for The Paladin. It’s for me. I’m scared that I won’t get a job if I voice a particular opinion, whether it’s correct or not. That’s just very scary. I think a lot of students at Furman kind of feel that.
🤝What impact is On Discourse having? Is it achieving its goals?
I think it’s having an impact, but I would like to see it expand. I’m in the first troop of student ambassadors, and I think that’s really good—there needs to be more student involvement. I think limiting On Discourse to CLPs only reaches a certain kind of student, which is just not the wider Furman population. We’re moving toward having public debates where we’d invite any student passing the library to come and debate certain political topics. That will be really good.
That said, it does seem that, especially on the more partisan or extremist ends of campus, it doesn’t resonate at all. I think many students, especially when talking about politics, are increasingly less inclined to consider the opposite opinion, especially around very controversial topics. Looking at Charlie Kirk’s death, for example, I saw many opinions that I viewed as extreme from people that I know and have never considered the inflammatory sort.
There’s a lack of empathy on campus toward the other side of any issue, and I don’t think that’s a specifically partisan problem.
Resorting to making ad hominem attacks or slandering opponents’ character or credibility concerns me deeply. It’s going down a dark path. I think On Discourse is a really good way to fight that, but I don’t know if it’s gonna do all that much. It can’t fix the culture.
💥Do the extreme parties on campus look at On Discourse as a joke?
I mean, typically, they’re not very cooperative with On Discourse. They’re not very cooperative with The Paladin generally. They don’t want to be a part of our Opinion section. They view us as having no backbone, or being too empathetic or moderate. I think that’s a flaw that limits their audience to their own folks. They’re only preaching to the people that already support them, and not to people who might be swayed by their message.
⚠️Do you think concerns over free speech at Furman have become overblown?
I would raise moderate concerns about the free speech climate. I think especially last semester and this semester in particular have been very concerning. The years before were less so. I think that the groups raising concerns are justified now, especially this semester. It’s just very hard to judge how you articulate those concerns. Different students in different partisan camps will disagree about how to approach the topic.
I do think that the fact that many different student groups voice these concerns, and the fact that On Discourse has gotten such legs and institutional support is very telling. These moves openly acknowledge that there’s a problem here that we need to fix in some way.
📉You said this semester has been worse than the last, and the last was worse than the one before. Could you elaborate on that?
The climate around controversy and campus dialogue has gotten a lot worse.
We’ve seen less support for certain political CLPs, and floundering support for our political articles throughout last semester. There was significant support for our work at the beginning, but when we tried to incorporate a lot of different opinions, we lost that support.
I’m definitely more worried now than last semester. Our opinion section is opening up at the same time that these wider political issues are becoming more divisive, and I’m worried that our writers will lack the desire to robustly defend their arguments and provide sufficient evidence, which won’t strengthen campus discourse.
🏫Do you detect any difference in the way students, faculty, and administrators approach these issues?
I think the administration pretty much stays out of free speech questions—they don’t do a lot outside of the On Discourse initiative or things like Riley and Tocqueville.
I think we’ve seen a really beneficial change in the way faculty treat certain issues, especially in their classrooms. There’s been a heightened commitment to bringing up differing opinions, and the discussion-based classes I’ve been in have been a lot better in the past few semesters, especially ones that tackle political issues. I think things like On Discourse, the Eberstadt situation, or even the wider Gen-Z atmosphere has elicited a really good faculty response. I think they’ve done a good job seeing that they need to serve as active moderators instead of opinionators, focus on facts rather than narratives, and pressure students to think for themselves.
💭Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I think that the people within the Furman community that are concerned about free speech are justified. I think that we all are responsible for the degradation of the speech climate. That means we’re responsible to fix it, and to make Furman a place where all students can feel empowered to think critically—to know how to think and not what to think. Students should be able to carry the amazing skills given by a liberal-arts education into their careers and into their lives without serious repercussions. They should be able to espouse ideas, in person or online, and not be instantly penalized for not having everything figured out when they’re 18 years old. That’s a wider national issue, but I think at Furman, we can be better than that.
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