The Board of Directors of the Collegian, and both John Harvey and Gerry Hamilton, must be tired this evening.

This afternoon, the Board came to a decision regarding the complaint by John Harvey and most of the Collegian’s alumni and staff against Gerry Hamilton, the paper’s general manager. John Harvey was reinstated to his position as the paper’s news adviser.

This was a civil war that tore apart State College’s most prestigious institution; even if the numbers were few against many, the paper was still a place with an upset hierarchy.

Back in May, Gerry Hamilton fired John Harvey for “insubordination,” the news adviser being canned by the general manager. The majority of the staff and a good number of its alumni got fired up in anger against this action. Just take a look at our first post, about the Save John Harvey Facebook group.

And that’s actually the source that corroborated this information after we got the initial tip from a Collegian editor through a public tweet.

The story was reported first on Onward State in May, then the Collegian began addressing it on May 30 after the aforementioned Facebook group lit up with discussion and protest.

The Collegian’s strongest message came when the Board of Editors itself actually addressed the issue in a “statement” published in June, not an editorial as their usual opinions are. We don’t know what’s happening to Gerry Hamilton yet, but the choices are pretty clear: the board can fire him or risk that its newsroom will probably be pretty awkward.

Update

The Collegian posted an article at nearly the same time we did… they have quotes from the board.

The Board determined the firing “was not supported by enough documented evidence to establish a claim of insubordination.”

Board President Michael Hofherr said the situation will continue to be monitored very closely.

“One of the tasks with the Board is to mend the relationship between the two,” he said.

You can look at the article here.