Incident details
- Updated on
- Date of incident
- October 14, 2025
- Location
- Bloomington, Indiana
The Indiana Daily Student was ordered by officials at Indiana University Bloomington to cease publishing its print version on Oct. 15, 2025. Above, a statue of journalist and alum Ernie Pyle in front of the building housing the student-run news outlet.
Indiana University reverses order that student paper stop printing
The Indiana Daily Student newspaper can resume issuing print editions after the top administrator at Indiana University Bloomington reversed an order on Oct. 30, 2025, that the paper cease all print publication.
Earlier in the year, the university had begun pushing for the paper’s “special editions” to exclude news in favor of themed coverage about topics like sports and holidays. Then, on Oct. 14, the university ordered the paper to remove news content from print editions.
The paper’s adviser, student media director Jim Rodenbush, opposed the order and was fired that day. The next day, administrators ordered the paper to stop printing entirely.
Staff at the paper, press freedom advocates and university alumni condemned the university’s actions as unconstitutional censorship.
On Oct. 30, the Daily Student published a letter from Chancellor David Reingold announcing that he would allow the paper to “use their established budget through June 30, 2026, as the editors see fit.”
The staff confirmed that Reingold’s directive means the paper can print its planned editions for the rest of the school year.
“My decision had nothing to do with editorial content of the IDS,” Reingold insisted in the letter. “Indiana University has never attempted to censor editorial content. The IDS is, and remains, editorially independent.”
But he acknowledged that the campus had not handled the controversy well. “Communication was uneven and timing imperfect,” he wrote.
The paper’s co-editors celebrated Reingold’s announcement, calling it “a win for student journalism, for editorial independence and our fight to bring quality journalism to our community.”
They criticized the university’s refusal to admit to censoring the paper, however, and called for students’ inclusion in discussions about the financial model for student media at the school.
Also on Oct. 30, Rodenbush sued the university in federal court, asking to be reinstated in his position at the university and that the court declare that the university violated the Constitution.
Administrators at Indiana University Bloomington fired the adviser to the Indiana Daily Student on Oct. 14, 2025, and then hours later ordered the newspaper to cease all print publication. The outlet has continued publishing online.
Founded in 1867, the independently-run newspaper reduced its print production in January to seven times per semester due to financial challenges and a new business plan launched by the university’s media school.
After the paper’s spring run, the university began pushing for its “special editions” to include no news but just themed coverage about topics like fall sports, Homecoming and Thanksgiving.
Student media director Jim Rodenbush and newspaper editors opposed the demand. Then, when Rodenbush pushed back against an order to remove news content from the newspaper’s print editions Oct. 14, he was fired.
“I was terminated because I was unwilling to censor student media,” Rodenbush told The Indianapolis Star.
The next day, administrators ordered the newspaper to halt all printing entirely.
“Telling us what we can and cannot print is unlawful censorship,” Co-Editors-in-Chief Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller wrote on the online site Oct. 15. “We will continue to resist as long as the university disregards the law.”
University Chancellor David Reingold maintained the school “is firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media” and that the decision “concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content.”
Spokesperson Mark Bode likewise said that the university is prioritizing digital media over print due to the newspaper’s financial status.
But for Hilkowitz, the decision is still a violation. “The Media School thinks they can violate the First Amendment if it’s under a business decision,” she told the Indy Star. “That’s a really, really dangerous thought process for administrators to have. The fact that they’re trying to frame clear censorship as business is so disrespectful to every party involved.”
Attorney Kris Cundiff of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is representing Hilkowitz and Miller.
In a letter to Reingold, President Pamela Whitten, Media School Dean David Tolchinsky and other school leadership, Cundiff wrote the termination of Rodenbush and cuts to the print paper were “ill-advised, unconstitutional, and appear to be aimed at suppressing core press and speech rights.”
“Telling student journalists what they can and cannot include in a newspaper is censorship of ‘editorial content’ by any definition,” Cundiff added.
The news outlet had previously been targeted by Indiana Lt. Gov Micah Beckwith, who, after his election last November, called the paper’s political coverage “elitist leftist propaganda,” and said university officials should evaluate the publication and investigate any financial support for it.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
