While this policy was decided on a majority vote, the Editorial Board was given a chance to voice their individual opinions regarding this new policy. Opinions are depicted below.
Nazaaha Penick, Editor-in-Chief: In these difficult times, the role of the journalist is more crucial than ever — to document acts of resistance and preserve the narratives that testify to the existence of a fight. I don’t believe there’s a perfect way to address these concerns, especially in the face of the threat of deportation, but bearing witness and amplifying these stories is a start — and sometimes, it’s the only power we have. I am concerned that honoring requests risks the erasure of important and valuable narratives that are crucial in maintaining such records. I firmly believe it’s important to remain unafraid in the face of our current political landscape, though I understand that ultimately we cannot force that decision upon those who do not wish to make it.
Chloe Collins, Publisher: As publisher of The Wire, I believe it is essential to take deletion requests seriously, especially in a political climate where students’ safety and well-being may be at risk. Our policy reflects a strong commitment to journalistic integrity and transparency, while still leaving room to listen to students and consider the real-world impact of our reporting. No policy can perfectly balance the tension between protecting individuals and avoiding censorship, but we are committed to approaching each request with consistency and compassion. I also recognize that our approach may need to evolve as circumstances change, and I would be open to revisiting the policy in the future.
Natalie Comerford, Managing Editor: I agree with The Wire‘s new policy regarding deletion requests. While I am upset by the recent political circumstances that have prompted us to craft this new policy, including students on F-1 visas facing possible deportation based on their potential political and/or activist associations, I believe it is important for The Wire to do its part in protecting vulnerable sources. It is an incredibly challenging and personal decision to reconcile with for me, attempting to toe the line between our rights to a free press and the reality of the world around us. I believe The Wire‘s new deletion policy is a reflection of our commitment to protecting vulnerable sources while still maintaining our ethics as journalists.
Alexa Grechishkin, Campus Life Editor: As a publication designed to serve the Whitman community, I believe the new deletion policy is necessary for the safety of our sources and upholds our ethical commitment to students’ well-being. Because the political landscape surrounding free speech is rapidly changing, I recognize that being on the record holds a different degree of risk than it has in prior years — especially for students who are not U.S. citizens. The deletion policy allows sources to respond to the changing circumstances surrounding free speech, providing a critical safeguard that maintains the material safety and mental well-being of our sources. While I recognize concerns about self-censorship, I think that a sympathetic response to sources must come first and that redacting names preserves articles’ valuable content while still responding to emerging student needs.
Lucia Hanscom, Production Manager: While the print layouts that the production team creates will never be altered, considering changes to online content is essential. This deletion request policy is especially important right now, as government policies change rapidly, putting members of our communities in danger in new and unpredictable ways. Ultimately, this policy will allow us to continue to protect those in our community who have trusted us with their stories and voices.
Hailey Kay Peterson, Production Manager: I support the ethics policy on deletion requests because student safety should be a priority. As a student-run publication, we have a responsibility to protect our peers while upholding ethical and compassionate journalism.
Carmel Stephan and Clara Flesher, Humor Editor and Chief Copy Editor: We believe that The Wire’s top priority should be to maintain the safety of our peers and community members. The Wire is a publication entirely run by students and depends on other students’ trust and participation in order to function. We do not feel that it is The Wire’s decision on what students choose to do with their activism, nor to refuse the boundaries students choose to establish when circumstances change. These requests cannot be boiled down to a lack of responsibility on the requester’s behalf when they participated in the given article. For us, this is not a question of whether or not people are standing up for what they believe, but rather an effort to find a way to still stand at all. We understand that submitting statements to a journalistic publication is something that can have consequences. But when those consequences are unjustifiable and in complete violation of how free speech is assumed to be protected in this country, the question becomes about how we can help our peers when they ask for help, rather than a responsibility as a writer to achieve some kind of higher ideal. In other words, these deletion requests, and our willingness to consider them, are not attempts to erase the truth for the sake of profit or ego. These actions are about recognizing the nuances and very real stakes of a shifting landscape.
Kaitlyn Salazar, Science and Environment Editor: I am concerned about how the censorship enacted by this deletion policy could limit The Wire’s ability to adequately inform and represent the Whitman community. With that said, I feel a paramount obligation to respect the wishes of my peers whose safety and livelihood are under threat by the Trump administration and/or the political regime of their home country.
Sebastian Vera Cuevas, Feature Editor: Like any student publication, The Wire has been forced to grapple with the increasingly volatile atmosphere surrounding the risks of accurate reporting. Academic, journalistic and ethical standards are often a contradictory mix of guidelines that publications must follow in order to preserve legitimacy and protect themselves, and this ethics policy was crafted with all three in mind. I feel The Wire’s ethics policy provides a fair and accessible process to request deletion and make one’s case for those in serious and tangible danger who unequivocally deserve to be protected whenever possible – including when The Wire has the power to better ensure their safety – while maintaining parameters that prevent the paper from violating longstanding ethics and journalism standards. We are a student newspaper, and the protection of students must come first, and this policy represents our efforts to do just that without compromising The Wire.
Ayat’arrahman Mahmoudi, Opinion Editor: I agree with the final policy. I would like to honor requests for deletion on a case-by-case basis, depending on their reason for requesting.
Kai Bowen, Illustration Editor: I believe that giving the option for a pseudonym is reasonable in this case, as the state of our political system becomes increasingly volatile. The students requesting the article deletion have also provided substantial reasoning for why the change should be made.
Bex Heimbrock and Garrett Schreiber, News Editors: These are perilous times for students and the institutions that are meant to preserve their freedom of speech. Our freedom of speech is under attack from both the United States Government, where reporters are being barred from the White House for refusing to adhere to political agendas, and within newsrooms across the country, where owners and editors have decided to selectively alter narratives in order to appease an increasingly autocratic state. Freedom of speech is also under attack via extrajudicial methods, such as President Trump’s threats to revoke the green cards and visas of students who have been labeled, fairly or unfairly, “pro-Hamas.”
We are alarmed at the recent news of a pro-Palestinian student activist’s detention and subsequent green card removal in a blatant free speech and due process violation. We are even more alarmed at the news that Columbia University – where the student lived, worked and attended school – appeared to aid the unlawful detention of their own student. We understand that this is the logical culmination of a years-long xenophobic campaign against Palestinian students (and, indeed, any student who happens to be an immigrant) carried out under bad-faith claims of antisemitism.
We also understand that we cannot expect our college to step up where Columbia has failed. Our administration has proven time and time again that they do not respect students’ First Amendment rights. From choosing to label the writing and dissemination of public information about high-profile individuals as “doxxing” to reprehensibly threatening student protesters with police action, Whitman’s current administration has proven that, when given the opportunity to stand up for their students, they will most often decline.
Not only has Whitman’s administration failed to protect its students, but faculty and staff members, hiding under the veil of anonymity, filed an Office of Civil Rights complaint in 2023 alleging antisemitic behavior from pro-Palestinian students on campus, effectively placing already-vulnerable students on the government’s radar. The anonymous signatories claim that they have a “repository of emails, images, news coverage and other documentation … that we would be happy to share with the Department if necessary.” It is not unreasonable to conclude that student names and other identifying information were included in this information, effectively putting a target on students’ backs.
There is no reason to assume that if ICE knocks at Whitman’s door, faculty, staff or administrative officials will choose to protect their own students.
Indeed, in President Bolton’s Feb. 18 email to campus titled “Responding to Recent Federal Announcements,” students with immigration concerns were encouraged to reach out to Vice President and Dean Kazi Joshua. Dean Joshua is the Chair of the Conduct Committee, which has overseen conduct cases against students for violations related to pro-Palestinian protests.
This is, in effect, the new McCarthyism. It is not unreasonable for our most vulnerable students – those who depend on student visas and whose immigration status is in flux – to fear for their safety. Indeed, the majority of requests the Wire is yielding are coming from students in such situations of precarity.
However, as the only well-funded, highly circulated independent free speech platform at Whitman, it is The Wire’s duty to uphold a platform committed to the free expression of ideas.
By choosing to accept requests to censor students’ names from articles, The Wire risks endorsing the censorial actions and extrajudicial means through which students’ fears of government retribution originated. Moreover, while The Wire may choose to edit articles in their current state, nothing can be done to alter archival material (which Whitman takes pride in) or prevent people from using a Wayback machine to view the article before changes were made.
The Wire has already taken a strong stance against requests from members of the administration to remove, redact or substantially alter the content of articles published in The Wire. In entertaining similar requests from students, we risk a double standard, threatening our commitment to unbiased work.
It should not be controversial to believe that individuals who choose to speak with The Wire understand that actions have consequences; words, once published online, will be accessible forever.
Protection of students on our campus is of the essence, this has never been questioned. However, the decision comes down to the fact that even if we take all the steps we can, students may still find themselves in danger despite our best efforts to keep them safe, and we will have set a troubling precedent for free speech at our publication. We at The Wire take the concept of censorship incredibly seriously, as does any rational thinker. Creating censorship precedent without guaranteeing to solve the issue it looks to remedy is beyond dangerous.
Perhaps this moment calls for a revisitation of policies meant to protect our vulnerable sources, including but not limited to our anonymity policy. However, we cannot in good conscience sign onto a policy that only serves to reinforce the censorship of students themselves.
