There were many vocal condemnations of “The Gazette,” Emporia’s local newspaper, after they printed an unsigned letter that passed judgement on Danica Rothe, a language arts teacher at Emporia High and alumna, in their Sept. 1 and 2 issue. The letter called Rothe out for allowing a piece of artwork with Trump and other persons with their throats slit to hang in her classroom.

The letter was accompanied by the picture.

Twenty people responded to the unsigned letter and “The Gazette’s” choice to print it with their own signed letters to the editor, which appeared in the Sept. 4 edition. Multiple others took to Facebook to demand answers from “The Gazette” about the unsigned letter. None of the letters appeared online, only in their print edition. 

“What is interesting is no one really talked about the content of it (the unsigned letter),” said Chris Walker, publisher of the Gazette. “They’re concerned about the anonymous (aspect), but no one was concerned about the actual (topic). I wrote an editorial on the actual topic of having a President’s slit throat (and) on whether (it was) appropriate or not. It’s interesting how the people were concerned about anonymous (issue) versus the real issue.”

Much of the concern within the community came from the fact that the letter that was printed was unsigned, therefore authorship was unknown. 

“I’m not sure there’s any hard or fast rule (about publishing letters unsigned) really,” Walker said. “Editorial page is for community conversations and if people are fearing retribution or something, it’s something we’ll take into account.”

The Gazettes guidelines printed in their paper are, “Letters must be no longer than 300 words, be signed and contain an address and daytime phone number.”

“The Topeka Capital-Journal,” “The Kansas City Star,” “The Wichita Eagle,” “The Lawrence Journal World,” “The Hutchinson News,” “KVOE” and The Bulletin all require letters to the editor to be signed, according to their respective policies. 

“In the editorial I wrote  people need to be aware, whether offensive or not offensive, of what’s being hung in classrooms,” Walker said. “If those were students with slit throats on their wall, it certainly wouldn’t be acceptable. Everyone’s questioning about (the) anonymous (aspect) when the internet’s full of anonymity, and we use anonymity. I think people are missing the bigger picture.”

Rebecca Herrig, of Emporia, wrote vocal support on Facebook of Rothe. 

“Teachers jobs are hard enough and we should be celebrating the teachers that inspire kids to think for themselves and express those thoughts, not fire them because they hung up one of their students projects,” Herrig said in an interview with The Bulletin. “She was always pleasant and very encouraging of my stepdaughter when I spoke with her during parent teacher conferences and my kid loved her as a teacher.  She was upset when she saw the letter and couldn’t believe that someone would say such mean and untrue things about Ms. Rothe.”