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Media|Dispute Over Indiana College Newspaper Draws Censorship Accusations
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/business/media/indiana-university-daily-student-newspaper.html
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The administration at Indiana University Bloomington fired the adviser to the paper and barred the publication from putting out a print edition.
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Oct. 17, 2025, 5:04 a.m. ET
Newsstands for The Indiana Daily Student stood empty across Indiana University’s Bloomington campus on Thursday, after a dispute that has left student journalists and press advocates accusing the university of censorship.
This week, administrators fired the Media School’s director of student media, who advised the newspaper. The director, Jim Rodenbush, said he had “no doubt” he was dismissed because he refused to order the students to stop publishing news, as he said the university had demanded.
The next day, Wednesday, the university barred the students from putting out a planned print edition of the newspaper and directed them to publish online only going forward.
“If it starts with us and we can’t fight back,” said Mia Hilkowitz, 21, a senior and a co-editor in chief of The Indiana Daily Student, “what happens to our colleagues and others in the media, not only at I.U. but at other universities across the country?”
The order by the university to stop print publication is a culmination of weeks of turmoil over the student newspaper. The university has said the changes are about shifting resources from print to digital media, a move that would address the newspaper’s “longstanding” financial deficit, and not about controlling what the students publish. The Indiana Daily Student receives some funding from the university.
The university’s chancellor, David Reingold, said in a statement on Wednesday that it was “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media.”
