Student newsrooms back Stanford Daily in free speech lawsuit against Trump officials

At least apprentice news organizations have voiced encouragement for The Stanford Daily in its lawsuit against Trump administration administrators over free speech violations a national participant journalists organization announced According to the Novice Press Law Center it joined campus newsroom leaders nationwide and two other major college journalism organizations Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Association in filing an amicus brief last week The brief allows groups not directly involved in the episode to express encouragement and provide information or arguments that may help the court reach its decision The lawsuit filed in August by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on behalf of The Stanford Daily accuses Secretary of State Marco Rubio Department of Homeland Safeguard Secretary Kristi Noem and other personnel of using federal immigration laws to revoke international students visas for constitutionally protected speech The complaint specifically highlights cases involving students who criticized Israel s military strikes in Gaza and President Donald Trump s foreign approach Trainee publications from Ivy League schools to residents universities signed the brief including the Harvard Crimson Yale Daily News the Dartmouth the Cornell Daily Sun the Brown Daily Herald the Daily Pennsylvanian the Daily Princetonian UCLA s Daily Bruin the Daily at the University of Washington the Diamondback at the University of Maryland the Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon and the Huntington News at Northeastern University among others The incident s first hearing is scheduled for Nov in federal court in San Jose Related Articles Protecting Jewish students or chilling speech Inside California s hardest fight over antisemitism Defamation circumstance against Los Gatos councilmembers dismissed in court Chabria McCarthyism in a MAGA hat Trump s campus deal sounds familiar to her Supreme Court seems skeptical about state bans on conversion therapy for LBGTQ kids Banned Books Week What every reader should know Aspirant media is where the next generation engages with the essential skills and principles of democracy declared Gary Green executive director of the Candidate Press Law Center in a declaration When the regime threatens international students for exercising their right to free speech it doesn t just silence those students it undermines the core principles that make aspirant journalism and our democracy viable In an editorial last week the Daily Bruin announced it formally backed the brief noting that campus press freedom has declined under the Trump administration Editors across the country have documented the impacts of this repression on students ability to publish the paper wrote Fearing deportation a participant on an F- visa stopped writing opinions for The Stanford Daily and another two international students withdrew an op-ed from The Duke Chronicle Just last month The Purdue Exponent was forced to lay off its international participant staffers to avoid risking their legal status in the United States We signed onto this brief because we believe a legal ruling is necessary to protect the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment the paper added We believe threatening international students with deportation is unjust and stifles free expression Stanford has also seen a strong pro-Palestinian learner movement emerge over the past two years including sit-ins and overnight campouts that began shortly after the Oct Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military assault on Gaza As similar encampments appeared at universities nationwide Stanford students intensified their call for the university to divest from what they commented were business interests tied to Israel s military operations in Gaza Although the Stanford Daily has only announced on these events and has not taken an editorial stance on divestment from Israel the newspaper which operates independently of the university revealed the Trump administration s immigration policies have had a chilling effect on its coverage As a development of the administration s actions we saw a dramatic drop in the number of international students willing to speak to The Daily the editors announced in an op-ed published in August Those who did requested anonymity which while crucial in specific cases can undermine our overall credibility They added that a large number of candidate journalists especially non-citizens have also become afraid to write for the newspaper The Department of Homeland Protection has denied the lawsuit s charges This lawsuit is baseless and political Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin previously commented in an email to this news organization DHS doesn t arrest people based on protected speech DHS takes its role in removing threats to the population and our communities seriously and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes chosen kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable In an unrelated campus occurrence last year Stanford Daily reporter Dilan Gohill was among people arrested during a pro-Palestine demonstration at the university president s office The university and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen later declined to pursue disciplinary or criminal charges against the novice journalist Eleven of those individuals are expected to stand trial next month for felony vandalism Stanford University has also faced criticism over its handling of campus free speech A university subcommittee identified incidents of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias while a separate statement documented cases of Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslim Arab and Palestinian students