The Black Student Union held an annual dinner, first convened in 1969, honoring Martin Luther King Jr., that has been canceled this year.
Indiana University in Indianapolis canceled a dinner in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. hosted annually in January by the Black Student Union, Mirror Indy reported. This year’s would have been the 57th consecutive annual MLK dinner, which was first convened in 1969.
Officials in the Division of Student Affairs told the Black Student Union the event was canceled at the end of the fall semester, citing “budget constraints,” according to a letter the Black Student Union executive council posted on Instagram.
“For months prior, we had been diligently seeking guidance and confirmation on whether the dinner would be approved, funded and supported,” the executive council wrote. “This is not just about a dinner. This is about the erosion of Black traditions under vague justifications. This is about institutional decisions being made without Black voices at the table.”
In a letter to campus Tuesday, IU Indianapolis chancellor Latha Ramchand said, “The MLK Dinner is not going away—rather we are in a moment of transition,” and described a new task force that will “help us reimagine our affinity dinners and related events.” The task force will complete its work by April 10, she said.
In their response letter to the Division of Student Affairs, the Black Student Union’s executive council questioned whether the current political climate may have influenced administrators’ decision to cancel the dinner. The university in May closed its diversity, equity and inclusion office, which included the Multicultural Center and the LGBTQ+ Center; student organizations within the office were transferred to the Office of Student Involvement. A student with the Queer Student Union told Mirror Indy that the Harvey Milk Dinner, typically held in October, was also canceled this academic year.
Nearly 92% of Indiana’s high school seniors graduated in 2025, setting the highest graduation rate on record, the Indiana Department of Education announced Monday.
“Today’s record-high graduation rate is a testament to the hard work of Indiana’s students, families, and educators,” Gov. Mike Braun said in a news release.
“While high school graduation marks the end of a student’s K-12 journey, our schools play an essential role in preparing students for all that comes next, whether that’s going to college, starting a career, or joining the military,” he continued. “This strong improvement in our state’s graduation rate shows that when we focus on academic excellence and establish clear, personalized pathways, our students thrive.”
The 91.83% graduation rate bested the 90.23% record set in 2024 by 1.6 percentage points.
It represents the third straight year of post-pandemic improvement kicked off in 2023, when 88.98% graduated. Seniors recorded a decade-low graduation rate of 86.65% in 2022.
“As we continue to scale the new Indiana diploma and readiness seals statewide, we will not only strengthen the value of high school and help more students graduate, we will ensure that they are prepared to succeed in whatever path they choose for their future,” state Education Secretary Katie Jenner said.
Numerous student populations improved in the results released Tuesday.
Almost 87% of Black students graduated in 2025, up 3 percentage points from the previous year, along with nearly 90% of Hispanic students, in a boost of 2 percentage points. White students improved to 93%, or by about 1.5 percentage points, and their multiracial classmates logged a graduation rate of 88%, up by 1 percentage point.
Seniors learning English, receiving free and reduced-price meals, and in special education also graduated at higher rates than the year prior — but still lagged their native speaker, paid lunch and general education peers.
The rate of students who graduated without waivers additionally cleared 90%. Students who do not complete or pass some graduation requirements can still qualify for a diploma if they demonstrate knowledge or skill.
The waivers are intended to help students with special circumstances, like those who’ve transferred to a new school or who have attempted to pass competency tests at least three times.
State education and policy leaders have for years sought to lower dependence on waivers, including by setting caps on the percentage of graduation waivers that can be counted toward a school’s state and local graduation rate. They took effect with the 2024 cohort.
Non-public schools outperformed their public counterparts by about 1 percentage point — 93% versus 92% — but the differences between traditional public and public charter schools were not reported. In the 2024 results, about 93% of students at traditional public schools graduated as opposed to just 59% of students at public charter schools.
Indiana’s federal graduation rate increased, almost hitting 90% compared to 2024’s 89%. The rates are calculated differently because of differences between state and federal accountability models, according to IDOE.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected].
Did you use this article in your work?
We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how
Those 3,040 retained students are more than seven times the 412 children held back in third grade two years ago.
Education Secretary Katie Jenner credited improved performance by students in the IREAD exam given last school year with the retention figure being lower than anticipated when the literacy requirement was being debated.
“The numbers that were being thrown out is that it would be 7,000 to 10,000 that this law would trigger retention,” Jenner told State Board of Education members. “But, in fact, a huge shout out to our teachers and our people, we have thousands of kids who are now readers.”
Education officials announced in August that 87.3% of third graders — about 73,500 out of more than 84,000 students statewide — demonstrated proficient reading skills in 2024-25. They hailed the nearly five percentage point improvement from the previous school year as the largest year-to-year jump since the state began IREAD testing in 2013.
That left about 10,600 children who didn’t meet the standard, with almost 7,000 being given “good cause exemptions” to avoid retention. Nearly 75% of those given exemptions were special education students and about 24% are English learners with less than two years of specific literacy services.
Anna Shults, the Department of Education’s chief academic officer, said the new retention requirement was having its intended effect.
“We are now ensuring that students that are promoted on to grade four are doing so with an ability to read and show mastery of key foundational reading skills,” Shults told the State Board of Education.
The Department of Education will have an online dashboard providing breakdowns of the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination assessment, or IREAD, by school district and individual schools, including charter schools and nonpublic schools.
Officials noted about 670 children who didn’t meet the literacy standards were not enrolled in Indiana schools this year, saying they likely moved out of state or were being homeschooled.
Jenner said a determination would need to be made about those students if they returned to Indiana schools.
“That’s a question that we’ll need to sort through, because some may move back into Indiana, or if they left for homeschool may come back in,” Jenner said. “Because we’re looking at every unique student, I think we’ll try to figure out exactly where they are.”
According to 2023 data, 13,840 third-graders did not pass I-READ-3. Of those, 5,503 received an exemption and 8,337 did not. Of those without an exemption, 95% moved onto 4th grade while only 412 were retained.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected].
Did you use this article in your work?
We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how
The student who wrote that line in FIRE’s annual free speech survey wasn’t using a metaphor. They were describing a spring afternoon in 2024 at Indiana University’s Dunn Meadow — a campus green with a lineage of protest dating to the anti-apartheid “shantytowns” of the 1980s — when officers with rifles took positions on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union over the heads of student protesters. Indiana State Police later confirmed they had positioned officers “with sniper capabilities” on rooftops.
The night before, administrators had convened an ad hoc meeting that rewrote IU’s Outdoor Spaces policy to require approval for structures that had long been permitted. By morning, a peaceful protest was recast as a policy violation. By noon, state police had taken a “closed sniper position” above the lawn.
Police arrested dozens of students and faculty over two days, and many received one‑year campus bans later challenged in court. Ultimately, the Monroe County Prosecutor’s office dropped the “constitutionally dubious” charges. FIRE wrote IU leadership objecting to the eleventh‑hour policy change and the resulting crackdown, warning IU that manipulating rules to curtail disfavored protest is incompatible with a public university’s First Amendment obligations.
For a university whose motto celebrates “light and truth,” the optics were unmissable: IU had turned its own tradition of protest into grounds for punishment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an isolated incident, but a warning for what would follow.
Act now: Condemn Indiana University’s censorship of student media
Indiana University fired its student media adviser for refusing to censor the student paper, then banned the paper’s print edition.
The atmosphere that spring clarified what faculty had been saying in whispered discontent for years: academic freedom and shared governance were being treated as obstacles to be managed. On April 16, 2024, nearly 1,000 faculty came together for an unprecedented meeting where 93% of those present voted no confidence in IU’s leadership. At the time, FIRE noted that the no‑confidence movement explicitly cited encroachments on academic freedom and viewpoint discrimination concerns.
One flashpoint was the university’s handling of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno, suspended from teaching and advising in December 2023 after a dispute over a room reservation — the registered student group he had advised being none other than the Palestine Solidarity Committee. FIRE went on record with a reminder that public universities must not punish faculty for facilitating student expression or for the viewpoints associated with that expression.
Another flashpoint was art. In December 2023, IU’s Eskenazi Museum abruptly canceled a long‑planned retrospective of Palestinian‑American painter Samia Halaby, notifying the artist her work would no longer be shown in a terse letter curtailing three years of preparation. IU invoked concerns about security and the “integrity of the exhibit.” But as FIRE explained, public institutions cannot cancel art because the artist’s politics are unpopular or because controversy is inconvenient.
Meanwhile, cancellations migrated into other corners of campus life. In January 2025, the IU School of Medicine canceled its LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference, initially offering only a bare note on the website. Administrators later cited pending legislation as the reason. One invited keynote speaker, journalist Chris Geidner, publicly confirmed the cancellation. As FIRE frequently reminds universities, preemptively shutting down academic programming due to political headwinds chills debate and undermines academic freedom. Universities exist to give ideas a platform, not to turn them away.
IU’s Israel-Palestine-related cancellations didn’t run in only one political direction, either. In March 2024, IU officials urged IU Hillel to postpone an event with Mosab Hassan Yousef, a prominent pro‑Israel activist and Hamas critic, citing security threats. Instead of securing the event, IU “postponed” it, but apparently never rescheduled.
By the publication of FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, the numbers matched the mood. Indiana University ranked 255th out of 257 institutions surveyed, making it the worst‑ranked public university in America, with bottom‑tier scores in openness, administrative support, and comfort expressing ideas. Roughly one in four IU students reported discipline or threats of discipline for their expression, and nearly three‑quarters of faculty said the administration does not protect academic freedom.
This fall, IU’s crackdown reached the newsroom. Student editors at the Indiana Daily Student ran two straightforward, newsworthy pieces: one on IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, another on IU’s abysmal free‑speech ranking. Students say Media School Dean David Tolchinsky pressed them to suppress the coverage. When they refused, the university ordered the paper’s print edition halted just before homecoming.
Control at an editorially independent student paper belongs to the students, not to administrators.
When Jim Rodenbush, the director of student media, declined to enforce content restrictions, he was fired. FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative immediately wrote IU on Oct. 16, condemning the firing as apparent retaliation and the print‑ban directive as unconstitutional censorship by a public university. The students’ response captured the stakes: an image of an empty newspaper rack on campus captioned with a single word in block letters, “CENSORED.”
IU has since reversed the print shutdown amid national outcry and a federal lawsuit filed by Rodenbush. The chancellor has authorized IDS to print through June 30, 2026, within budget parameters. FIRE’s position remains: Control at an editorially independent student paper belongs to the students, not to administrators.
Seen together — the midnight rule change at Dunn Meadow, the snipers on the roof, the faculty’s 93% vote of no confidence, the sanctioning of a professor for defending a student group’s right to meet, the cancellation of an artist’s exhibit, the quiet erasure of a healthcare conference, the postponement of a controversial speaker under the elastic banner of security, and finally the order to stop the presses — it is clear Indiana University has a crisis on its hands. This is a campus where students practice self‑silencing to survive the semester, where faculty measure every sentence against the week’s political weather, where the oxygen of inquiry thins until only the safest words remain.
Today — Monday, Nov. 10 — FIRE answers in one forum the university can’t control: the public square. Our first billboard went up in Bloomington this morning. It’s stark — black, white, and FIRE red — and it names the problem plainly, pointing readers to see the record for themselves.
IU has a chance here to do the right thing, but if they don’t, more boards will follow, put up in places where IU’s leaders, alumni, and visitors will pass them on their way to games and meetings and flights. The point is not spectacle but accountability: to hold a mirror up to a public university that has tried, repeatedly, to dodge the image it has made for itself.
The first billboard in FIRE’s campaign, installed in Bloomington on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025
FIRE doesn’t launch campaigns like this to score points. We’re launching this campaign because IU, a taxpayer‑funded institution, has betrayed its public duty, believing it doesn’t need to answer to the Constitution or the consequences of ignoring the First Amendment.
Any university that posts sharpshooters over a peaceful protest, cancels art for its connotations, shutters a conference because of its politics, and then turns around and tells student journalists they can’t print the truth about any one of these stories hasn’t merely lost its way. It has chosen a different map — one that trades the honest noise of debate for the chilling silence of control. That’s not how we do things in America.
What the hell is going on at Indiana University?
Indiana University just banned its student paper for reporting its awful free speech ranking. You literally can’t make this up.
The rifles are gone from the roof now, but the memory of their presence is as much a part of Dunn Meadow as the grass. The empty newspaper racks may soon be refilled, but national headlines about a campus with no newspaper endure like a warning label.
Indiana University’s leaders have a choice to make.
They can continue to censor and pretend it’s not a problem. Or, they can acknowledge what these last 20 months have made obvious and begin to repair what fear has fractured. They can ensure student and faculty speech is not micromanaged, that journalists report without preclearance, that art hangs because it is art, and that a university’s purpose is not to avoid controversy but to teach, especially when the debate is loud and the issue is of great public importance.
We’re calling on IU to issue a public statement acknowledging its violations of students’ and faculty members’ free speech rights and to meet with FIRE’s experts to begin improving its ranking. Reinstating Rodenbush would also be a meaningful first step in demonstrating that IU is serious about addressing its free speech problems.
Until then, we’ll keep telling this story where it cannot be edited away — on screens, on pages, and, starting today, on the unmissable canvases that rise beside Indiana’s roads.
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita alleges Indianapolis Public Schools has multiple policies that violate state laws by prohibiting local government entities from limiting or restricting federal immigration enforcement.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Rokita claims the 30,000-student district has policies barring federal immigration officers from accessing nonpublic areas on school property without a judicial warrant, and that these policies are illegal under Indiana law and pose “grave risks to public safety.”
Rokita’s lawsuit also cited an incident on Jan. 8, 2025, in which IPS’ policies “directly contributed to the failure” of federal immigration officers attempting to deport an undocumented Honduran man.
Dive Insight:
The IPS Board of School Commissioners said in a Thursday statement that Rokita’s lawsuit is a “heavy burden” and “silly litigation and political posturing” that impacts students, families and taxpayers.
“Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment,” the board said. “In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.”
The board emphasized that it has always upheld the law and will continue to do so while ensuring “safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.”
Beyond denying access to immigration enforcement officers to school property without a judicial warrant, IPS also requires its employees to not assist immigration efforts unless legally required and authorized by the superintendent, according to Rokita’s lawsuit. The other IPS policy challenged in the complaint is that district staff are prohibited from collecting, maintaining or sharing information about the immigration status of a student, their parents or a school employee.
The IPS Board of School Commissioners said it has been “actively collaborating” with Rokita’s office to go over relevant policies of concern. The board said, however, that Rokita only gave the district five business days to review and respond to his opinion on the policies.
“Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain,” the board said.
The IPS policies being challenged, however, are a common practice in other school districts looking to protect students affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement in communities nationwide this year.
In fact, immigration lawyers have advised districts across the country to train their principals and teachers to know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers cannot enter school property without a warrant signed by a judge.
Immigration advocates have also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which ruled that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education based on their immigration status. Additionally, other state and local guidance has reminded school administrators this year that districts must maintain the confidentiality of all personally identifiable information in education records related to students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
As ICE efforts go on near school communities, some district leaders — most recently at Chicago Public Schools — are calling for virtual schooling for students and families living in fear of federal immigration enforcement presence. Educators, advocates and child psychology experts are continuing to sound the alarm on the traumatic impacts immigration enforcement has on students, including school avoidance and stress.
But in Indiana, Attorney General Rokita said in a Thursday statement that sanctuary policies like those in place at IPS “are bad in any context, but they are especially troubling in our schools.” He added that, “schools across the country are vulnerable to infiltration by criminal illegal aliens — it’s happened in many other states — and it is essential that ICE be able to take action when that occurs to help keep our kids safe.”
Rokita’s lawsuit also alleged that in January, ICE’s efforts to deport an undocumented Honduran man living in Indiana were thwarted because IPS did not let the man’s son, who is an IPS student, reunite and leave the U.S. on a flight with his father, who volunteered to board.
“IPS took the position that it would not release the child to an ICE officer unless the officer had a judicial warrant or other court order,” the lawsuit said. “ICE responded that it simply was asking that the son be released to the father so that they could depart the country as the father had agreed to do and that such action did not require a court order.”
Because the father was unable to get custody of his son to board the flight with him, the father missed his flight, and the voluntary departure order expired, according to the complaint. As a result, the lawsuit said that “an illegal alien who should have departed the United States — who had voluntarily agreed to depart the United States — therefore remained in the United States because of IPS’s actions.”
The decision by Indiana University administrators to allow the Indiana Daily Student newspaper to resume occasional publication is a victory for the advocates of free expression on campus. The Student Press Law Center, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the American Association of University Professors, along with student newspapers across the country, spoke out loudly in defense of Indiana student journalists. Particular praise goes to the students at the Purdue Exponent, which printed the censored homecoming issue of the Indiana Daily Student and distributed it around Bloomington, Ind., in solidarity with fellow journalists.
It’s rare for administrators to quickly reverse course and effectively admit they made a mistake. But while we need to celebrate a win, we also need to recognize how partial and temporary it was—and the enormous threat to freedom of the press that still exists at Indiana and beyond.
What Indiana University administrators did was one of the worst attacks on a free press at a public university in the history of American higher education. It combined three of the most terrible types of censorship of the press: 1) imposing massive content restrictions by attempting to ban the newspaper from printing any news, 2) banning the newspaper completely from being printed when the editors refused to obey these unlawful demands and 3) firing the professor who served as newspaper adviser, student media director Jim Rodenbush, for defending freedom of the press.
While the first two forms of repression have now been (temporarily) lifted, the last one still remains. When the newspaper adviser who was fired for opposing censorship remains fired, it’s still censorship. And Chancellor David Reingold’s decision to allow the newspaper to publish still includes severe budget cutbacks and elimination of university support for the publication.
Suppression of a free press at Indiana is linked to its broader repression of free expression. FIRE recently ranked Indiana University as the worst public university in America for free speech (and the student newspaper’s article about this ranking reportedly was one of the reasons why the administration cracked down on the free press). The repression by Indiana administrators has been astonishing. In December 2023, Indiana University suspended professor Abdulkader Sinno for the crime of reserving a room for an event critical of Israel. At the same time, the administration also canceled its art museum exhibit of abstract art paintings by Samia Halaby, a Palestinian American artist who had been critical of the Israeli government. In 2024, Indiana officials banned all expression on campus between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., which a federal judge paused while an ACLU lawsuit against the censorship continues.
In my 2020 report for the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement about freedom of the press on campus, I noted some of the severe threats to free expression: punishing independent media advisers who fail to rein in student newspapers, censoring campus papers directly, restricting access to campus, limiting the rights of faculty and staff to speak to reporters, and many more. But perhaps the greatest threat to journalism on campus is economic, when student newspapers are defunded and eventually decline from a thousand budget cuts.
The dire economic environment for newspapers across the country has also affected student publications. The drop in advertising revenue has hit campus newspapers, and many universities would rather put resources into public relations staff under the control of administrators rather than support student journalists who challenge them.
What universities can do to respect freedom of the press: First, do no harm. Stop trying to censor newspapers. Enact free expression policies that protect freedom of the campus press and the rights of their advisers and sources.
Second, integrate journalism into the curriculum. Offer classes about journalism, but recognize that many different classes (and especially writing-focused classes) can encourage students to publish their work, both online and in print. Good journalism is just good writing, and colleges should encourage students to publicly express their ideas on a wide range of topics.
Third, support campus journalism financially. Colleges ought to provide a substantial fund to campus newspapers to publish ads promoting events and activities on campus. By allocating this money for newspaper ads and then allowing campus programs and student organizations to freely use it for their events, colleges can promote what they are doing while supporting independent journalism. The belief that student newspapers shouldn’t be subsidized and must independently finance every word they print is a strange concept for colleges that are devoted to subsidizing the free exchange of ideas.
Student newspapers are the most important extramural activity on college campuses, and more essential than much of the courses, research and administrative work that receives vastly greater funding. A campus newspaper is more than just a critical source of information about what happens at colleges: It’s an education for writers and readers alike. It’s a bridge between the campus and the community, where growing news deserts make student papers more important than ever. And the campus newspaper is a symbol of intellectual debate, the most public place at a college where ideas are exchanged and arguments between different viewpoints are heard.
Indiana University banned its student newspaper from printing just days before homecoming weekend — after firing the paper’s advisor when he refused to censor critical coverage.
That would be bad enough on its own, but FIRE is taking this one personally, as the Indiana Daily Studentreported this hostile campaign was due in part to its coverage of FIRE’s ranking Indiana University as the worst public university for free speech.
You read that right. The school’s response to the news that they are bad at free speech … is to censor the news. It’s ironic — and not just in the Alanis Morissette sense — that these actions will likely push its overall ranking even lower next year. At least we can’t fault them for consistency.
And to make sure the school’s odious status fully benefits from the Streisand effect, we want to explain in excruciating detail exactly how the school earned such a low ranking.
“The president has called snipers on protestors before.”
That’s what one IU student told FIRE when asked for our annual survey to describe a time they felt they could not express their views on campus because of how other students, faculty, or administrators would respond. Another student told us:
“When I, as a student leader and representative of my entire campus, had a sniper gun pointed at me when trying to defend a protest that was in compliance with school policies.”
Both comments refer to how IU handled the pro-Palestinian protest encampments in the spring of 2024. On the eve of the protest at Dunn Meadow — a campus green space where students set up “shantytowns” in 1986 to protest and demand divestment from apartheid South Africa — administrators held an 11th-hour meeting and enacted a more restrictive speech policy banning unauthorized structures such as tents. The next day, they called in state police. That’s when officers with sniper rifles took position on the Indiana Memorial Union roof.
The year prior, IU ranked 243 out of 251 schools in our College Free Speech Rankings and was the second-worst public university overall. This year, after the sniper incident, IU ranks 255 out of 257 schools — performing poorly in terms of openness (255), administrative support (251), self-censorship (246), and comfort expressing ideas (227).
When asked this year whether they had ever been disciplined or threatened with discipline for their expression on campus, roughly a quarter of IU students said yes. 2% said they had been disciplined and 21% said they had been threatened with it.
IU faculty agree. Almost three-quarters of those we surveyed last year from March 4 to May 13 said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that the administration protects free speech on campus, while 69% said academic freedom is “not at all” or “not very” secure on their campus.
In April 2024, faculty launched a petition calling for a vote of “no confidence” in the university’s leadership. They cited encroachments on academic freedom and shared governance, highlighting examples that raised concerns about viewpoint discrimination. These included the university’s suspension of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno from his advising role after he publicly criticized the university for denying a room reservation to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group he advised, as well as its cancellation of an art exhibit and talk featuring Palestinian artist Samia Halaby at its campus museum.
That no-confidence resolution passed, with 93% of the 948 faculty members in attendance voting in favor.
Those two incidents negatively impacted IU’s performance in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, and the cancellation of Halaby’s exhibition and talk also hurt IU in this year’s rankings.
But that’s not all. This year, IU was also penalized for:
Postponing a campus event featuring prominent pro-Israel activist and Hamas critic Mosab Hassan Yousef after multiple student groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Middle Eastern Student Association, criticized the event and called Yousef “Islamophobic.” IU told Yousef that it was postponing the event because of “security threats involving the Muslim community and several white supremacist groups.” The event was not rescheduled.
Failing to stop student protesters from disrupting a talk between Senator Jim Banks and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick by pushing and harassing attendees, chanting to disrupt the event, and accusing the speakers of supporting “genocide” and “killing children.” The discussion was halted as police removed several protesters. The event then continued without further disruption.
Canceling the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference after President Trump issued executive orders restricting the use of federal funds for DEI initiatives.
Banning threestudentsfrom campus for a year after they were arrested for trespassing during the aforementioned suddenly out-of-bounds pro-Palestinian encampment in Dunn Meadow.
We told you Indiana University was a bad school for free speech. In fact, it’s literally one of the worst. And the public is as outraged as we are — so far, over 1,700 people have sent our Take Action email to IU President Pamela Whitten telling her she can’t censor a free press.
Congratulations Indiana, you’ve managed to outdo yourself. See you at the bottom next year.
Indiana University banned its student newspaper from printing just days before homecoming weekend — after firing the paper’s advisor when he refused to censor critical coverage.
That would be bad enough on its own, but FIRE is taking this one personally, as the Indiana Daily Studentreported this hostile campaign was due in part to its coverage of FIRE’s ranking Indiana University as the worst public university for free speech.
You read that right. The school’s response to the news that they are bad at free speech … is to censor the news. It’s ironic — and not just in the Alanis Morissette sense — that these actions will likely push its overall ranking even lower next year. At least we can’t fault them for consistency.
And to make sure the school’s odious status fully benefits from the Streisand effect, we want to explain in excruciating detail exactly how the school earned such a low ranking.
“The president has called snipers on protestors before.”
That’s what one IU student told FIRE when asked for our annual survey to describe a time they felt they could not express their views on campus because of how other students, faculty, or administrators would respond. Another student told us:
“When I, as a student leader and representative of my entire campus, had a sniper gun pointed at me when trying to defend a protest that was in compliance with school policies.”
Both comments refer to how IU handled the pro-Palestinian protest encampments in the spring of 2024. On the eve of the protest at Dunn Meadow — a campus green space where students set up “shantytowns” in 1986 to protest and demand divestment from apartheid South Africa — administrators held an 11th-hour meeting and enacted a more restrictive speech policy banning unauthorized structures such as tents. The next day, they called in state police. That’s when officers with sniper rifles took position on the Indiana Memorial Union roof.
The year prior, IU ranked 243 out of 251 schools in our College Free Speech Rankings and was the second-worst public university overall. This year, after the sniper incident, IU ranks 255 out of 257 schools — performing poorly in terms of openness (255), administrative support (251), self-censorship (246), and comfort expressing ideas (227).
2026 College Free Speech Rankings: America’s colleges get an ‘F’ for poor free speech climate
The sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings show a continued decline in support for free speech among all students, but particularly conservatives.
When asked this year whether they had ever been disciplined or threatened with discipline for their expression on campus, roughly a quarter of IU students said yes. 2% said they had been disciplined and 21% said they had been threatened with it.
IU faculty agree. Almost three-quarters of those we surveyed last year from March 4 to May 13 said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that the administration protects free speech on campus, while 69% said academic freedom is “not at all” or “not very” secure on their campus.
In April 2024, faculty launched a petition calling for a vote of “no confidence” in the university’s leadership. They cited encroachments on academic freedom and shared governance, highlighting examples that raised concerns about viewpoint discrimination. These included the university’s suspension of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno from his advising role after he publicly criticized the university for denying a room reservation to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group he advised, as well as its cancellation of an art exhibit and talk featuring Palestinian artist Samia Halaby at its campus museum.
That no-confidence resolution passed, with 93% of the 948 faculty members in attendance voting in favor.
Those two incidents negatively impacted IU’s performance in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, and the cancellation of Halaby’s exhibition and talk also hurt IU in this year’s rankings.
But that’s not all. This year, IU was also penalized for:
Postponing a campus event featuring prominent pro-Israel activist and Hamas critic Mosab Hassan Yousef after multiple student groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Middle Eastern Student Association, criticized the event and called Yousef “Islamophobic.” IU told Yousef that it was postponing the event because of “security threats involving the Muslim community and several white supremacist groups.” The event was not rescheduled.
Failing to stop student protesters from disrupting a talk between Senator Jim Banks and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick by pushing and harassing attendees, chanting to disrupt the event, and accusing the speakers of supporting “genocide” and “killing children.” The discussion was halted as police removed several protesters. The event then continued without further disruption.
Canceling the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference after President Trump issued executive orders restricting the use of federal funds for DEI initiatives.
Banning threestudentsfrom campus for a year after they were arrested for trespassing during the aforementioned suddenly out-of-bounds pro-Palestinian encampment in Dunn Meadow.
We told you Indiana University was a bad school for free speech. In fact, it’s literally one of the worst. And the public is as outraged as we are — so far, over 1,700 people have sent our Take Action email to IU President Pamela Whitten telling her she can’t censor a free press.
Congratulations Indiana, you’ve managed to outdo yourself. See you at the bottom next year.
First Amendment advocates are condemning Indiana University’s decision this week to suspend print publication of the Indiana Daily Student, a move that comes after administrators fired its adviser for allegedly rejecting demands to censor the student newspaper.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression called the decision “outrageous,” while officials at the Student Press Law Center cast the move as a classic case of censorship. Editors at the newspaper say they want to work with the university to address the issue but pledged “to resist as long as the university disregards the law.”
“Any other means than court would be preferred,” wrote IDS editors Mia Hilowitz and Andrew Miller in an op-ed Wednesday.
The decision is the latest flare-up between student journalists and institutions. Earlier this year, Purdue University ended its partnership with the student paper, citing “institutional neutrality.” The move also echoes Texas A&M University’s unilateral decision in 2022 to end its student newspaper’s print edition.
The IDS editors first brought attention to the firing of Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush in a Tuesday op-ed. They accused IU of ousting Rodenbush after he refused to follow directions from administrators to censor a homecoming edition of the newspaper. Administrators reportedly told Rodenbush the newspaper was only to contain information about homecoming and “no traditional front page news coverage.” But when he resisted, and editors at the Indiana Daily Student pressed Media School administrators for clarity, Rodenbush was fired.
A termination letter shared with Inside Higher Ed and signed by Media School dean David Tolchinsky accused Rodenbush of a “lack of leadership” and inability “to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan,” which he called “unacceptable.” Tolchinsky added that Rodenbush “will not be eligible for rehire at Indiana University.”
The termination letter sent to Jim Rodenbush.
After Rodenbush was ousted, administrators canceled publication of the newspaper, citing a plan adopted last year that outlined a shift for the student newspaper from print to digital platforms.
“In support of the Action Plan, the campus has decided to make this shift effective this week, aligning IU with industry trends and offering experiential opportunities more consistent with digital-first media careers of the future,” Tolchinsky wrote in an email to student editors obtained by Inside Higher Ed.
Indiana administrators deny that the university censored the paper, despite telling the student publication not to publish news. IU officials say that the newspaper retains full editorial control.
Accelerating a Shift
In a statement shared with Inside Higher Ed and attributed only to an IU spokesperson, officials wrote, “Indiana University Bloomington is committed to a vibrant and independent student media ecosystem.” The statement added that the shift from print to digital is geared toward “prioritizing student experiences that are more consistent with today’s digital-first media environment while also addressing a longstanding structural deficit at the Indiana Daily Student.”
Chancellor David Reingold also pointed to the action plan in his statement, noting that “the campus is completing the shift from print to digital effective this week.” He added that the decision “concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content,” and IU upholds “the right of student journalists to pursue stories freely and without interference.”
Tolchinsky, President Pamela Whitten and members of the Board of Trustees did not respond to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed. IU did not answer specific questions sent by email.
Although Indiana officials have denied censoring the student newspaper, some officials were concerned about the optics of shutting down coverage, according to the Indiana Daily Student.
When Rodenbush pushed back on the directive to censor the newspaper in a Sept. 25 meeting, Ron McFall, assistant dean of strategy and administration at the Media School, reportedly asked, “How do we frame that, you know, in a way that’s not seen as censorship?”
McFall did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
‘Textbook Case of Censorship’
Rodenbush told Inside Higher Ed in a phone interview that he was surprised by his firing and open to exploring all legal options. He also cast the happenings at IU not as a business decision but pure censorship.
“This is a textbook case of censorship,” Rodenbush said.
He also disputed the notion that what happened was part of a shift to a digital product. In fact, Rodenbush argued, that shift largely already happened when university administrators decided last year to scale back the publication of the print edition from weekly to seven editions across the spring semester. Those seven printings were special editions, Rodenbush said, given that those “are generally our biggest revenue generators.” Special editions this year have been printed as supplemental sections, or essentially inserts into the regular editions of the paper.
Prior to the fall semester, Rodenbush said, he never heard concerns from administrators about that practice until they objected to publishing the homecoming edition as an insert in the regular newspaper in September. When asked to ban news coverage from the homecoming edition, Rodenbush told Media School administrators, including Tolchinsky, he “wasn’t going to participate in censoring the paper,” which he said led to his firing.
Hilowitz and Miller, the IDS editors, also disputed the notion that the cancellation of the print publication, which was communicated to them by Tolchinsky, was anything but censorship.
“IU decided to fire Jim Rodenbush after he did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition. That was a deliberate scare tactic toward student journalists and faculty. 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,” they wrote in a joint emailed statement.
The duo accused IU of trying to “irrationally justify” censorship as a “business decision.”
Mike Hiestrand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, told Inside Higher Ed that IU’s actions amount to content-based censorship and are “a clear violation of the First Amendment.”
Asked to weigh in on IU’s response, Hiestrand commented, “No censor wants to be called a censor,” but “that’s clearly the case.” He added that being told not to publish certain information is “as content-based an action of censorship as you can get.” In an interview at a media conference in Washington, D.C., with hundreds of student journalists and advisers in attendance, Hiestrand said that there has been a sense of shock and outrage from attendees over the situation.
“I think there’s shock that this happened here. We have strong laws that protect against this,” Hiestrand said.
Free Speech Under Fire
The censorship flap comes amid broad criticism of the state of free expression at IU, which FIRE ranked as one of the nation’s worst institutions on campus speech. Of 257 universities, FIRE ranked IU at 255 in its free speech rankings.
IU has seen a flurry of campus speech controversies since Whitten became president in 2021.
“Censoring a student publication after it reported on a university’s dismal record on free speech isn’t just a stunning display of lack of self-awareness, it’s a violation of the First Amendment,” FIRE student press program officer Dominic Coletti said in a statement. “If Indiana University is embarrassed about its terrible showing in the College Free Speech Rankings, it should put down the shovel and start caring more about its students’ constitutional rights than its own image.”
The university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors urged administrators to reconsider their decisions to fire the adviser and cut the print edition, saying the situation further deteriorates IU’s commitment to free speech.
“In refusing to be cowed by demands to voluntarily abrogate constitutionally protected rights, Director Rodenbush and the Indiana Daily Student have indeed shown themselves out of alignment with a University Administration that has consistently silenced dissenting voices with a seeming disregard for First Amendment protections,” the chapter said in a statement.
This latest controversy is also gaining national attention from big-name donors such as Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and IU alum. Cuban, who previously donated money to support the Indiana Daily Student, called out administrators in a post on X.
“Not happy. Censorship isn’t the way,” Cuban wrote Wednesday. “I gave money to [the] IU general fund for the IDS last year, so they could pay everyone and not run a deficit. I gave more than they asked for. I told them I’m happy to help because the IDS is important to kids at IU.”
On Oct. 14, Indiana University abruptly fired Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush after he refused to enforce unconstitutional content restrictions on the student paper the Indiana Daily Student. The very next day, IU ordered IDS to halt print publication.
This illustrates why IU ranked dead last among public universities — and third-to-last overall — in FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings. Firing a student media adviser for refusing to censor a student newspaper, then banning print editions of that paper, sends a message that would chill even the most courageous young journalist: Cover stories we don’t like, and you’ll lose your ability to print — and your faculty support.
What did the Indiana Daily Student do to provoke this reaction?
They used their front page to attack IU’s track record on free speech, citing IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee and IU’s ranking as the worst public university in the nation for free speech. In the wake of these stories hitting newsstands, administrators summoned Rodenbush to a meeting to discuss “expectations” for what belongs in the paper.
IU’s Media School instructed the student paper to publish an edition exclusively devoted to homecoming flattery with “no other news at all.” When Rodenbush stood his ground, administrators then said they “lost trust” in his leadership — and immediately fired him.
But public universities can’t order students to publish puff pieces. They can’t shut down newspapers for coverage that makes administrators uncomfortable. And they can’t fire advisers who refuse to play the censorship game.
Firing Rodenbush and banning the paper are textbook First Amendment violations that IU claims are part of a digital-first media strategy. But that’s a smokescreen. Cutting the print edition and removing a longtime adviser after critical coverage isn’t a strategy. It’s retaliation. And it’s illegal.
IU is failing its students, its faculty, and the Constitution it is bound to uphold. FIRE is demanding that IU reverse the print ban, offer Rodensbush reinstatement, and make a public commitment to restore student press freedom on campus.
Stand with us and tell IU President Pamela Whitten to end this censorship crusade.
