The Thresher must stop endorsing SA candidates

By Ayush Suresh     2/25/25 11:13pm

Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion that has been submitted by a member of the Rice community. The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Thresher or its editorial board. All guest opinions are fact-checked to the best of our ability and edited for clarity and conciseness by Thresher editors. 

The Thresher holds a clear stranglehold on Rice-wide media and, as such, its Editorial Board should not endorse candidates in the Student Association elections. 

The discussion around media’s political endorsements resurged during the most recent election cycle, when Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, killed the paper’s endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run. 

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To be clear, I do not disagree with the general practice of media endorsements in political elections, and I categorically disagree with Bezos’ actions. However, I believe the relationship between Student Association and the Thresher is fundamentally different than the relationship between legacy media and national politics.

Dating back to 1916, the Thresher is Rice’s first student publication. Though it has long since been absorbed under Rice’s general umbrella of student media, along with ktru and the Campanile yearbook, the Thresher is the only journalistic outlet that routinely covers campus events. All of this is to say one thing: the Thresher holds a unique and unshared platform at Rice.

Individuals searching for news and endorsements in national politics have access to a plethora of media outlets, which provide individual points of view and widely different takes across the political spectrum. In contrast, as the most prominent campus publication, the Thresher issues a centralized position to the entire university, with little room for comment or dissent. 

Its editorial board’s endorsements hold much power; without competing platforms of a similar scale, endorsements can dictate races and deem selected candidates as de-facto front-runners. Out of the seven contested races that the board has endorsed since 2020, five have gone on to win their elections.

I do not believe that the editorial board is entirely misguided in their takes; their endorsements during my time at Rice have been well thought out. However, they give the Thresher undue power and sway in the scope of the election. Though I have faith in the board as it exists today, future editors have the ability to significantly influence elections in favor of candidates whose policies favor the interests of that select group.

The editorial in last week’s Thresher asked that the SA begin to adopt changes to engage more of the student body in its processes. While entirely valid, it is equally important that institutions around it also change to help reinforce its position as an agent of the student body. I believe the Thresher should continue to conduct unbiased coverage of candidates and races — offering unbiased features on candidates and their platforms is a great way to inform the general Rice audience in this era of the SA’s growing disconnect with the student body. But even if it entails bucking a long-running Thresher tradition, abandoning SA endorsements is a key step in allowing elections to reflect not the opinions of a select few, but instead those of the overarching student body.

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