Back-to-Work Order

After being fired for refusing to print military recruiting advertisements, the editor of Michigan's Wayne State University's student newspaper has decided to print the ads in order to get her job back, a newspaper editor said last week.

Patricia A. Maceroni was fired three weeks ago for banning the advertisements in protest of U.S. military involvement in Central America. But Maceroni changed her mind because the South End, Wayne State's daily newspaper, had suffered greatly in her absence, according to news editor Maureen T. Aitkens.

The Student Newspaper Publications Board, which oversees the newspaper's management, found Maceroni guilty of insubordination in early October. But a federal court judge overruled the board's decision because it was made in a private meeting, and thus was in violation of Michigan's open meetings act. The judge temporarily reinstated Maceroni as editor until a second meeting could be called.

Last week, the board voted 7-1 in favor of retaining Maceroni as editor, on the condition that she life the ban on military recruiting advertisements, Aitkens said.

The South End was struggling to maintain its standards while Maceroni was gone and would have been hard pressed to continue if she had not relented to the Publication Board's demand that she print the military ads, Aitkens said.

Maceroni was originally fired from her $150-per-week post because she claimed the newspaper's charter gave her full responsibility for editorial and advertising policy. Members of the Publications Board disagreed, saying the editor did not have the power to make advertising decisions.

Wayne State, a Detroit commuter school of 29,000 students, took so strong a stand in the Maceroni case because the university wants to court potential military defense research contracts, most of which are rumored to be Star Wars related, said Christopher J. Greenlee, the newspaper's managing editor.