SMITHFIELD — In a theft that one student editor called “immature,” 900 copies of The Archway, the Bryant University weekly student newspaper, were stolen from five newsstands last week.

Lauren Cimino, 20, the paper’s editor-in-chief, said 2,500 copies of the Nov. 3 paper were printed and distributed to several locations Friday morning. In the afternoon, Cimino said a student notified her that papers were being stolen and Cimino witnessed two students taking 150 papers from the Elizabeth and Malcolm Chace Wellness and Athletic Center. Newspapers were also taken from the Unistructure and the Bryant Center.

“It’s disheartening when the work of 15 of us goes into something and someone can just wreck it by an immature act,” said Ryan Daley, 21, the paper’s opinion editor.

Cimino and two newspaper staff members checked the school’s garbage cans for the missing newspapers, then reported the theft to the university’s Department of Public Safety.

Cimino said the experience has been “overwhelming” and she believes it could be an act of retaliation against the newspaper. “It’s just one of the many ways students act out against a paper when they find something they don’t like,” she said.

While the newspapers are distributed free on campus, they cost $1,030 to print and contained $1,030 in advertisements, said Shawn Benham, 21, the paper’s business manager. Benham said he was unsure if the paper would have to reimburse its advertisers, but said he would work with them to fulfill their contracts.

Renee Buisson, a Bryant University spokeswoman, said the theft is under investigation and she could not comment. In general, Buisson said the school would hold a hearing before its disciplinary board and the involved students could face sanctions ranging from a reprimand to community service or suspension.

The 16-page newspaper contained 10 news and feature stories, two sports pages, three opinion pages and two arts pages. Cimino and Daley said they believe the culprits might have wanted to hide the front-page story about a car accident that occurred near campus.

On Oct. 11, Bryant student Joshua Lipton, 20, was involved in a three-car accident on Route 7. The accident caused critical injuries to Jade Combies, 20, of Lincoln, and minor injuries to Lipton and four other people.

Lipton was arraigned on Oct. 12 on a felony count of driving under the influence, serious injury resulting, before Judge Michael Higgins and bail was set at $25,000, according to Smithfield police. He is due in Superior Court on Dec. 14, the police said.

Lipton’s attorney, Kevin Bristow, said his client met with university officials on Friday and he had nothing to do with the newspaper disappearances.

Bristow also said that Lipton is “extraordinarily concerned” for the people who were injured in the accident, has offered to assist them and prays for their recovery.

This is the second college newspaper theft in Rhode Island this year. In April, 5,000 copies of the University of Rhode Island’s student newspaper were stolen. The newspaper costs $350 to print and contained $600 in advertisements.

While the campus police could not prove who stole the papers, it was commonly believed that the theft was instigated by a negative fraternity story, Linda Lotridge Levin, chairwoman of the URI journalism department, wrote in an e-mail.

“I feel passionately that such acts are clearly a violation of the First Amendment’s right to a free press,” Levin said. “When students take such actions, they don’t always understand this is far more than simply trashing campus newspapers.”

Newspaper theft can be seen as a form of censorship and it can have larger ramifications, said Mike Hiestand, attorney and legal consultant to Student Press Law Center. Some papers run on small budgets and thefts can hamper their operations, he said. California, Colorado and Maryland have laws to prosecute student newspaper thefts while other states use regular theft laws to deal with incidents, he said.

“Students newspapers are pretty much the student voice on most college and university campuses. Newspaper thefts silence that voice,” he said. “It’s a very disturbing lesson about the importance that our next generation places . . . on free press and free expression on campus.”