In last week’s issue, we published an article in The Brandeis Hoot’s Opinions section that erroneously stated that the university paid to upgrade snack food vending machines on campus instead of funding a supply of free menstrual products on campus. This was misinformed because the vending machine company, not the university, covered the costs of installing the new machines, and the company will receive all profits from the machines. This means that the administration did not prioritize the installation of these machines over providing free menstrual products. We apologize for this error. A formal retraction of the article can be found on page 15 of the Opinions section of this week’s paper.

We as an editorial board are responsible for verifying that everything we print is accurate and will have a renewed focus on this issue in our Opinions section moving forward.

This retracted article was a follow-up to a column arguing more generally that Brandeis should provide menstrual products for free. Both of these pieces generated significant response on social media and have made it appear to some that The Hoot is the face of a campaign for free products. We would like to clarify that the articles printed in the Opinions section of the paper do not represent the opinions of The Hoot’s editorial board. The only place our opinions are represented are in the editorials found on this page each week.

In response to these Opinions pieces, Jim Gray, the vice president for Campus Operations, sent an email to the writer and Hoot editors that if this is an issue about which students care, they should communicate it through the Student Union.

The point of this editorial is that not only through the Student Union do students seek to initiate progress. The Student Union is a strong vehicle of change as the representative body of students who are in close communication with the administration. However, it is not an avenue that all students utilize. There are barriers to approaching the Student Union, such as unfamiliarity with the process and a sense of bureaucracy. For these and other reasons, students have often turned to other organizations in order to make their voices heard.

If students turn to us to speak out, we want to be sure that they are being listened to. We are not writing this editorial to indict anyone but because we feel a duty to make sure that the students who write to us are being heard. The Hoot was founded as an alternative outlet for student voices, and we strive to continue to honor this.

We appreciate that the Student Union takes their work seriously and has taken steps to become more approachable. We also appreciate that the administration works closely with the Union on many issues, but they are not the only campus organization that students rely on to address serious issues.

The recent collaboration of the administration with the Rape Crisis Center (RCC) is a testament to this potential. Initially, students organized independently in response to the appalling state of sexual assault and how survivors are treated on campus. Due to the traction of this movement among students, it caught the attention of the administration, who worked with the students to increase resources for the prevention and awareness of sexual assault.

We appreciate the support that the administration gives the Student Union, but we want the administration to support all student concerns in whatever form they are vocalized.

The university boasts that it has more than 200 student organizations. We ask the administration to give each group the consideration it deserves as a collection of the students who make up the university.

We do not want to call out the administration. We want to call them in to the discussion and solution of issues that people on campus care about.