Indiana University just showed student journalists what it really thinks about a free press: Publish something administrators don’t like, and you lose your faculty advisor.
After Jim Rodenbush, Director of Student Media and longtime faculty adviser to student media at IU, refused an administrator’s demands to impose unconstitutional content restrictions on the Indiana Daily Student’s homecoming edition, he was fired.
Not reprimanded. Not sidelined. Fired.
The facts are clear: Rodenbush resisted pressure from IU’s Media School to scrub the homecoming edition of real news. After he stood up for student press independence, IU administrators removed him. Then they stripped the student paper of its most symbolic and visible form: the print edition. In two days, IDS lost their advisor and control over its paper’s content. After pushback, administrators caved and restored the print edition. But Rodenbush is still out of a job.
That’s censorship at its worst.
Administrators didn’t even try to hide it. They only called a meeting with Rodenbush after IDS published stories on IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee and its third-to-last placement in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.
And it sends an unmistakable message: Journalists who don’t follow the university’s orders will be silenced — and so will anyone who defends them.
The First Amendment prohibits public universities from retaliating against student media because of what they publish — or refuse to suppress. IU’s actions aren’t just heavy-handed. They’re unconstitutional.
Tell Indiana University: Stop the censorship. Offer Rodenbush reinstatement. Respect student press freedom.
