IDS published a letter titled ‘CENSORED’ on Oct. 16 responding to a staff firing and cutting the print paper.
Indiana University (IU) is facing national criticism after firing its director of student media and ordering the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) to cease printing new editions, a move student editors and press freedom advocates have called censorship.
The university’s decision came hours after Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush was fired on Oct. 14. According to The Guardian, Rodenbush told NBC News that he “was terminated because I was unwilling to censor student media. 100%. I have no reason to believe otherwise.”
The firing followed a dispute between the IDS newsroom and the media school over print content. According to an Oct. 16 article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, administrators had instructed the editors to exclude news stories from their next print edition and instead publish only homecoming or special feature material. When editors resisted, the university halted all print editions.
On Oct. 16, the IDS released a digital version of its paper featuring a front-page editorial titled “Censored.” The headline appeared in large, all-capital, red letters above a subhead reading “This is not about print. This is about a breach of editorial independence.”
In the accompanying letter, IDS editors wrote that 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.”
The editors also pledged to continue resisting the university’s actions.
“We will continue to resist as long as the university disregards the law,” they wrote in the Oct. 16 editorial. “Any other means than court would be preferred.”
Rodenbush’s firing and the end of print operations drew widespread criticism from students, alumni and national press freedom organizations, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), the Student Press Law Center, PEN America and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
In an Oct. 20 letter sent to IU President Pamela Whitten, Chancellor David Reingold and Media School Dean David Tolchinsky, RCFP attorney Kristopher Cundiff called the university’s actions “ill-advised, unconstitutional and appear to be aimed at suppressing core press and speech rights.”
Cundiff wrote that IU’s decisions violated both the First Amendment and the university’s Student Media Charter, which, since 1969, has guaranteed the IDS’s editorial independence.
“Telling student journalists what they can and cannot include in a newspaper is censorship of ‘editorial content’ by any definition,” Cundiff wrote in the letter.
IDS Co-Editors-in-Chief Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller confirmed in an email to the Creightonian that they were unable to sit for an interview, explaining that the past two weeks put them behind in their classes as they responded to media inquiries. Still, they provided a joint statement addressing the ongoing situation.
“IU decided to fire Jim Rodenbush after he did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition,” Hilkowitz and Miller said in the email. “That was a deliberate scare tactic toward student journalists and faculty.”
The editors said the decision to halt print immediately after Rodenbush’s firing compounded the damage, cutting off a key source of revenue for the paper.
“The same day, the Media School decided to fully cut our physical paper, fully ensuring we couldn’t print news. We’re losing revenue because of that decision,” Hilkowitz and Miller said in the email.
They emphasized that their protest is not simply about maintaining a printed product but about protecting the independence of student journalists from administrative control.
“We want to make it abundantly clear that our resistance to the Media School’s directive isn’t about print itself. It’s about maintaining our editorial independence,” Hilkowitz and Miller said in the email to the Creightonian. “If IU can irrationally justify censoring stories as [a] ‘business decision,’ what stops them from applying this thinking to the news and investigative stories that run on our website and social media?”
Hilkowitz and Miller had to skip various classes to deal with the situation over the last two weeks.
“IU has no legal right to dictate what we can and cannot print in our paper. Is this the best use of our time or the university’s time? We should be working toward financial stability, not censorship,” they said in the email.
Hilkowitz and Miller concluded their message with a call for IU to reverse its actions.
“Once again, we are asking IU to reverse course — a necessary action to prove they value our editorial independence and rights,” they wrote in the email.
According to an Oct. 21 report in the IDS by managing editor of content Alayna Wilkening, IU Chancellor David Reingold said the university “is firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media,” adding that the campus’s decision “concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content.”
Following the backlash, IU announced the creation of a task force to evaluate “how to ensure student media independence and financial stability.” In a statement reported by Indiana Public Media, Media School Dean Dave Tolchinsky said, “This task force represents an opportunity to take that commitment even further — by strengthening the foundations that support it.” Recommendations are expected next year.
FIRE connected the incident to IU’s low ranking in its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, in which the university placed 255 out of 257 institutions. In an Oct. 23 article titled “What the Hell Is Going on at Indiana University?” Sean Stevens of FIRE wrote that IU’s actions “followed the paper’s coverage of its poor free speech ranking,” calling the university’s decision a “hostile campaign” against student journalists.
“Congratulations Indiana, you’ve managed to outdo yourself,” Stevens wrote. “See you at the bottom next year.”
At Creighton University, Patrick J. Borchers, J.D., professor of law, said IU’s actions raise serious First Amendment concerns.
“There appears to be some substantial basis to believe that IU’s desire to limit the student newspaper’s print edition to essentially a promotional pamphlet for events such as homecoming is a desire to suppress speech based on its content,” Borchers said in an email. “If so, that’s a likely violation of the First Amendment. Some limitations — such as ‘time, place and manner’ restrictions — are permissible. If the newspaper published pornographic content and made it easily available to minors that would be a different manner, but there’s no suggestion that (or anything like it) occurred here.”
Borchers explained that because Indiana University is a public institution, it is constitutionally bound to uphold free expression.
“It’s important to understand that the First Amendment is in play because IU is a public university,” Borchers said. “The First Amendment only restricts public or governmental entities from restricting free speech. However, many private universities commit themselves to protecting speech through student handbooks and other policies.”
Borchers added that if the case went to court, the IDS would need to prove the university’s “budgetary explanation” was merely a pretext.
“A troubling possibility is that the IU administration is feeling pressure, either directly or indirectly, to avoid the pressure campaigns being put on high-profile universities and believes that limiting the content of the print edition will help keep it under the radar,” Borchers said.
The controversy has sparked widespread and renewed conversations about the role of student journalism at public universities. For the IDS, their staff said the fight is not simply about ink on paper — it’s about preserving the independence of student reporters in the face of institutional power.