BLACKSBURG -- Nearly a week after a nationally publicized dust-up with the campus newspaper, Virginia Tech's Commission on Student Affairs voted Wednesday to pursue professional mediation with the publisher of the Collegiate Times over its online comments policy.

More than 30 members of the commission, many of them leaders of student organizations, agreed to pursue a mediation process offered by Tech's Office of Equity and Inclusion. The commission wants to persuade the CT leadership to restrict anonymous comments on the newspaper's Web site.

But it seemed unlikely that the CT or its parent company, Educational Media Company at Virginia Tech, would participate.

The parent company's general manager, Kelly Wolff, said Wednesday the company, which has suspended in-person meetings with the commission, would "conduct any discussion in writing."

The groups came to an impasse last week after the commission voted to recommend the university delay renewal of a contract with Educational Media and signaled it might push for a ban on student organizations buying ads in the newspaper with university funds.

Educational Media warned that the company would sue if the university acted on those recommendations.

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker has said the administration would not penalize the newspaper or Educational Media, an independent nonprofit that receives $70,000 a year and free office space from Tech to run the newspaper, student literary magazine, yearbook, and campus radio and television stations.

At a commission meeting Wednesday, emotions still roiled around the issue, however.

Tech professor Frank Shushok said it is "reprehensible that African-Americans see that the university has to underwrite an organization that posts something racist."

Members of the commission have complained about online comments, often posted anonymously, that they characterize as racist, sexist and homophobic. They say that disallowing anonymous comments would curb the offensive postings.

The controversy stretches back to January 2009, when a Chinese graduate student decapitated a woman in the Graduate Life Center, and anti-Asian comments were posted at the CT Web site.

"This is an issue of violence prevention," said Leighton Vila of the Graduate Student Assembly. "Given the history of our school, I don't think that's appropriate."

But the CT decided to continue to allow anonymous postings. Many regional and national news organizations allow anonymous comments on their Web sites.

Even if the newspaper required some type of registration or verification of identity, "it wouldn't be a perfect system," Public Editor Justin Graves wrote in a commentary posted at collegiatetimes.com in November.

"We also believe it would eliminate a number of constructive yet critical comments that students or other community members may not want their name attached to," Graves wrote.

Some student leaders said Wednesday their groups have decided to discontinue advertising in the CT, or were considering doing so, in protest of that decision.

Matt Penny of the Interfraternity Council said that organization had already stopped buying ads that he said were worth up to $2,000 to $4,000 annually.

"The power is in our hands," Penny told the commission.