On Jan. 30, the Daily Eastern News published a letter to the editor by Don Smith.

The letter has been a controversial topic at Eastern in the following weeks.

I want to make this perfectly clear to the student body, staff and faculty of Eastern, the DEN does not support hate.

The DEN supports free speech.

We have an editorial policy of publishing any letter to the editor we receive as long as the author comes to the newsroom and shows their identification or sends the letter from their campus email address.

The only way the DEN will not publish a letter to the editor is if it is libelous.

Smith’s letter was not libelous. However, it was controversial.

While Smith’s letter was controversial, the letter needed to be published.

As journalists it is our job to let the public know what ideas are in their community. Even the upsetting, disgusting or ridiculous ones, such as the ones Smith propagates, need to be published so the public is aware that there are people who have these ideas in their community.

At a forum held Wednesday night, the DEN was asked by Student Body President Sean Anderson if we valued free speech more than the rights of our fellow students not to be harassed. He wanted the paper’s adviser to answer yes or no.

If Anderson had bothered to direct the question to me, which he should have, I would have answered him.

Quite simply, the answer is yes, we do.

Free speech is what this country is built upon. We value the ability of all Eastern students to have their voices heard. We value their ability to voice their concerns in the form of letters to the editor or with the campus forum.

But this also means we have to value Smith’s right to free speech.

We cannot have it both ways. Free speech applies to everyone or it applies to no one.

We, as a paper, need to run all view points in our paper to be fair. This means we may run letters that upset people.

However, not running these letters would do more harm than running them could ever do.

Attempting to shut down a line of thought only makes it seem more credible.

The correct way to handle it is to allow bad ideas to be published, exposing them for what they are and allow the masses to decide what is right and what is wrong.

I have final control, as editor in chief of the DEN, of what goes into the paper, not the advisers to the DEN.

But it is not my job to decide what is right or wrong. It is your job, as readers, to do that.

The public outcry that Smith’s letter caused has made it clear what the public thinks about the ideas expressed in his letter, but Eastern’s students, staff and faculty need to make sure that despite the anger the letter has caused they do not lose sight of the civil liberties they value.

This includes freedom of speech for everyone, not just those we agree with.