(U-WIRE) FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The Board of Student Communication (BSC) held a public opinion meeting Wednesday night in the Plant Science Building at Colorado State University in light of the Rocky Mountain Collegian’s Sept. 21 editorial content.

Protestors began early by carrying signs in support of and against Editor-in-Chief J. David McSwane inside and outside of the building.

At 7 p.m., the meeting commenced with nine board members present and a room packed with students, community members and CSU faculty.

“What we are doing is listening to people,” said Jim Landers, a journalism professor and a BSC board member. “We have 19 people who wish to speak in support of the editorial. We have 12 people who wish to speak opposing the editorial.”

A fact-finding session was held in which McSwane and Director of Student Media Jeff Browne answered questions from the board regarding their involvement and the decision-making process in running the controversial editorial.

“We decided to run the ‘F*** Bush’ editorial after we, as students, came together as an editorial board and felt very strongly that the incident at the University of Florida was something that students should be talking about,” McSwane said. “We felt that CSU and the CSU campus as a whole was largely apathetic and we wanted to facilitate a debate about free speech.”

“We felt the best way to do that instead of writing a 250-word editorial as we usually do was go ahead and exercise our rights,” McSwane said.