The Red & Black board member who wrote a memo that led the paper's student leadership to walk out Wednesday has resigned, and the board returned to editorial control to the students, but the former editor says she's not sure if the staff will return to work.

The board apologized for a "misunderstanding" in a statement vice chairwoman Melita Easters read in front of the independent student-run newspaper's Baxter Street office Friday afternoon. "The student editor has always had the final editorial decision responsibility for our news content," the statement read. "That is still the case. The professional staff who work on the editorial side of this newspaper are intended to be coaches and advisers only."

Ed Stamper—a retired businessman, former Red & Black staffer and board member whom the board hired as a consultant to create a new business plan for the paper when it began focusing on online content over print last year—resigned from the board Friday. Stamper set off the firestorm Wednesday with a draft memo, rife with misspellings and grammatical errors, proposing taking control over content away from students and giving it to editorial director Ed Morales, and calling for more positive news and less hard-hitting reporting. [full disclosure: Ed Morales is married to Kristen Morales, a Flagpole freelancer.]

Former editor Polina Marinova said on the blog Redanddead.com that top editors, page designers, photographers and reporters walked out in protest when they saw the memo. “I decided to resign as editor-in-chief because I felt it wasn’t an environment about learning and training students to do quality journalism anymore,” she said. Social media, then local Athens and Georgia media and journalism trade websites, and even national news outlets, picked up on the story in the following hours and days.

Stamper did not attend the news conference, but other board members distributed a statement attributed to him. The statement says he intended the memo to be talking points for a discussion with Morales. They don't reflect the Red & Black's views and weren't meant for students' or the public's consumption, he said. "I sincerely apologize for all the embarrassment these documents have caused," he said. "I am also terribly saddened by the resulting misunderstanding and it's (sic) impact on The Red and Black and its loyal, talented staff members. It is personally embarrassing to have the public see a document I gave little thought (to) and so carelessly worded."

Even though they won concessions from the board and publisher Harry Montevideo during closed-door meetings Friday, student staffers aren't sure if they'll ask for their jobs back, Marinova said Friday. "I don't know yet," she said. "We'll have to talk." All told, about 50 students attended the open house.

The Red & Black advertised an "open house" Friday afternoon to hire new student workers, but when dozens of curious reporters and outraged alumni also showed up, they were barred from a meeting between the board and student journalists. Joshua Buce, a reporter for WUGA-TV, took a camera upstairs and was "put down" by Montevideo, he said. Some witnesses said Montevideo tackled him; others, including Montevideo, said he fell as the publisher escorted him out. (Update: Grady Newsource posted a video of the altercation, but it doesn't clear up what happened. And Montevideo apologized for the incident.)

Not all of the students' supporters were satisfied with the outcome. Yasmin Yonis, a former opinion editor who graduated in 2011, said the board's assertion that students never lost editorial control is "a blatant lie." Bigger changes are needed, she said. "Harry either needs to resign or pledge his commitment to putting students first and putting journalism first," she said.

Yonis also defended Morales, who she said wasn't in favor of Stamper's proposals. "Ed Morales was one of the best advisors any student journalist could have," she said. Morales made a brief speech, pointedly introducing himself as the "editorial advisor"—not director—and asking student staffers to come back to work.