This letter represents the view of Old Gold & Black Editor-in-chief Ella Klein, not the Old Gold & Black. 

Last week, the student newspaper at the University of Indiana Bloomington was barred from putting out a print edition, and its advisor was fired. The Indiana Daily Student, one of the best student newspapers in the country, was censored. The school proposed that this decision was due to budget issues, but denied any extra funding that was given to the newspaper. In the New York Times, one of the co-editors-in-chief of the paper, 21-year-old Andrew Miller, shared,

“The media school tries to construe this as a business decision, but fundamentally they are trying to tell us what we can and cannot print,” Miller said.

This was not a budgetary decision. Any obstruction of the freedom of the press, or any other infringement on the Bill of Rights, is illegal and pervasively wrong. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. 

Perhaps you’ve read an earlier editorial of mine and heard my plea for ethical journalism or increased numbers of student reporters. This is not because the paper does not have enough writers, but because writers are increasingly scared to write for us in this current political climate. 

Since my start at the paper, I have only seen an increase in fearmongering from outside parties and news outlets. I have seen larger newspapers than ours and The Indiana Daily Student bow their heads and compromise their journalistic values due to political pressures, especially from pressures given by the Trump administration. 

Let me be clear: The Old Gold & Black would never compromise any of our values due to institutional pressure. However, as students, like the Indiana Student Daily, we are at the mercy of the University for funding and printing concerns. Wake Forest University has always worked with us, not against us, and understands the newspaper is important to the integrity of the campus. I hope it stays that way. 

As an organization, we stand with The Indiana Daily Student and call on the university to reinstate its print edition, to stop the censorship. We call on every administration to understand that a student newspaper is a vital part of student life and university accountability.