Forty years is not an achievement.

This anniversary has forced us to reflect on how this paper was conceived, raised and matured over the course of its lifetime. The past 40 years should not be regretted for what failed along the way, but embraced for what they taught us. For that reason alone, this anniversary should be celebrated with all the joy and pride of a student’s graduation day. Each staff has become a student of the staff before it, drinking deep from the reservoir of learned experience. And this paper has enriched itself and grown wiser and taller as a result, increasing in stature among its peers each year.

We may have hatched a dream back in 1969, but it was far from realized. Those people who point to The Badger Herald as a haven of right-wing propaganda and sensationalism should feast their eyes on editorials mocking “The Daily Crudinal” or satirical reports of the editors’ front-page mock suicide over indoctrination from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. It was far from sterling objectivity.

But it was another viewpoint, and more importantly, an alternative viewpoint. Even when taken to the financial brink like several other challengers to The Daily Cardinal’s campus hegemony, we pulled out, in characteristic right-wing fashion, enlisting the help of noted conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr.

The staff changed, but the controversy this paper generated increased. While some may still take offense to Doug Moe’s bizarre tirade on Madison bikers, I speak of the editorial of Richard Voss, who wrote in 1976 — ?Can Africans Rule Themselves?? The piece was assailed as racist and seems abhorrently na?ve to many today, even to those skeptical of the success of independent African government.

But it was free speech. An extreme viewpoint is still a legitimate vendor in the marketplace of ideas and should not be shut down.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s the only viewpoint. After tensions rose over the strident defense by some editors to maintain a conservative slant, we learned and retooled. News coverage soon gave way to more objective forms and the opinion pages slowly treaded back toward an ideological balance. It took opinion longer than news, but eventually, the “ra-ra” editorials for Ronald Reagan gave way to more substantive critiques of the university’s speech code and the performance of Chancellor Donna Shalala.

But even as we solidified the paper on this campus, with the move to a daily paper in the mid-’80s and brief “sole paper” status during the Cardinal’s 1995 bankruptcy, we still had much to learn.

On Oct. 1, 1998, the opinion section ran a comic depicting a young black student yelling at affirmative action opponent Ward Connerly, hidden behind a large armchair, about not understanding the needs of the black community, as the student assumed he was white. The next frame showed Connerly turned around in his chair, revealing he was black, a fact that renders the student speechless.

After that cartoon ran, students upset with the commentary came into the Herald and forced the Editorial Board to write an apology. They agreed, printing it on their front page on Oct 5. We lost our nerve. But one person still stood up.

Opinion editor Katie Fetting offered an alternative opinion, defending her right to publish the cartoon: “I will not be bullied or cajoled into abandoning that which is essential to liberty, namely, the freedom to have an opinion. … But read on comrades. Write letters, read opinions. Listen to each other. Recognize that there are issues, ideas and opinions that need to be addressed. But recognize that retracting them won’t make them vanish.”

The Badger Herald staff two years later would heed that lesson. We printed an advertisement from David Horowitz called “10 reasons why reparations for slavery is a bad idea — and racist, too.” Despite protests by hundreds, a boycott by the MultiCultural Student Coalition (which continues today) and criticism by the Dean of Students at that time, we stood strong and defended the publication.

We didn’t back down. And we never will. We stand, yesterday, today and tomorrow, as an independent, strident voice for free speech on this campus and will always strive for that “continual and fearless sifting and winnowing.”

It is not an achievement to have lasted this long. It is an honor and privilege to continue on this mission, with no obstacle too great to stop us.