College Editor Cleverly Bypasses Newspaper Censorship by Going 'Topless

The Associated Press used this clever headline: "College paper goes topless for exotic dancer story." "What?" you may ask. Well, it's not what it seems.

Remember the story we brought you earlier this week of the Catholic university professor in Philadelphia who taught his business ethics class using strippers? Well, the college newspaper of La Salle University -- where the incident occurred -- wanted to publish a story about it. But officials didn't want the story getting much play, so it told the editor that if he ran the story, he couldn't feature it on the top of the front page. So he got clever.

(Read our original story.)

In Thursday's edition of the the Collegian,  the top half was left blank, except for the words "See below the fold."

Officials at the private Roman Catholic university have previously confirmed an investigation of the March 21 seminar.

The newspaper's executive editor, Vinny Vella, says administrators initially forbade him from printing the article at all until their investigation was complete.

They relented after the Philadelphia City Paper broke the story April 8 but issued the story-location caveat. The university's dean declined to comment.

"You need to stand up for yourself every once in a while," Vella told Philly.com. "You can't let authorities intimidate you."

The Associated Press contributed to the report.