Indiana University has ordered its student-run newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student (IDS), to cease printing new editions and fired the school’s director of student media, who also served as the paper’s adviser, according to multiple reports. Students at the school are criticizing these moves as censorship.
The university’s directive to halt print editions came just hours after Jim Rodenbush, the school’s director of student media, was terminated, according to a letter from IDS editors.
The editors said that that Indiana University and the media school “previously directed the IDS to stop printing news coverage in our newspaper. Only the special editions, traditionally included as inserts in our paper. Telling us what we can and cannot print is unlawful censorship. The Student Press Law Center agrees and had told the university to reverse course.”
“After former Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush resisted, IU fired him. When we asked them to rescind the order, it cut print entirely,” they wrote.
Rodenbush confirmed to NBC News on Thursday that he was fired on Tuesday.
In recent weeks, there had been disagreements between university leadership, IDS editors and Rodenbush over what content could appear in the print paper, according to the Indianapolis Star.
“If you’re telling them that you can’t put this in the paper on campus, it’s the literal definition of censorship,” Rodenbush said in a meeting on 25 September with other IDS professional staff members, according to a recording obtained by the Star. “It cannot come from me, and it cannot come from you.”
Rodenbush told NBC News that Indiana University had previously announced that it would reduce the paper’s print frequency from weekly to seven per semester. He said that he was told the school wanted to focus on “special” print editions that were more profitable.
But, he said, administrators went further and told him this fall that print editions could no longer include news content. (The IDS’s website still publishes news.)
The next print issue was due to go out on Thursday, but the editors instead released a digital copy online, according to their letter. The front page features the words “CENSORED” in large red letters, with a subhead that reads: “This is not about print. This is about a breach of editorial independence.”
“We are alarmed, but not shocked, by this media School administration’s decision to terminate Jim based on his commitment to defending our First Amendment rights,” student editors-in-chief Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller said in a statement to the Indianapolis Star.
“All Media School and IU students, faculty and staff should be scared by this blatant attack on someone standing up for what’s right.”
Rodenbush told the same outlet that he “was terminated because I was unwilling to censor student media. 100%. I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
In a statement on Thursday, an Indiana University spokesperson told the Guardian that the university “is committed to a vibrant and independent student media ecosystem”.
“As part of the 2024 action plan for student media, the campus is shifting resources from print to digital media, prioritizing student experiences that are more consistent with today’s digital-first media environment while also addressing a longstanding structural deficit at the Indiana Daily Student,” the statement reads. “Editorial control remains fully with IDS leadership, and the university will continue to work closely with them to ensure the strength, sustainability and independence of student media at IU.”
The spokesperson added that the school “does not comment on individual personnel matters”.
David Reingold, the chancellor of Indiana University Bloomington, said in a statement on Wednesday that the university is “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media”.
“Informed by feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders, the action plan for student media envisions a student media ecosystem that is centered on a digital content model and prepares students for digital-first careers,” Reingold said. “It also aims to address longstanding financial challenges facing the IDS – including a structural deficit that the campus has subsidized to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars each year – while affirming its charter and ensuring it retains complete control of its editorial content.”
Reingold added that the “campus is completing the shift from print to digital effective this week” and that the “campus’s decision concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content. All editorial decisions have and will continue to rest solely with the leadership of IDS and all [Indiana University] student media.”
Free expression groups and advocates have condemned the university’s decision. On Thursday, PEN America, a non-profit focused on free expression, called the university’s actions as a “blatant violation of the principles of free expression that public universities are bound to uphold”.
The Student Press Law Center said that it was “alarmed” by the school’s decisions.
“These actions disregard strong first amendment protections and a longstanding tradition of student editorial independence” the center wrote.
