Why student journalists are asking to remove their names from articles

Michelle Liao is a rising senior at the University of Michigan studying psychology and political science.

Last summer, a former student journalist asked the University of Michigan’s student paper The Michigan Daily to take down or anonymize an article they had written more than 10 years ago. The article mentioned their involvement in a movement calling for the school to divest from companies associated with the Israeli government. In the email, they explained that their partner was a green card holder, and they were about to travel abroad with their young child. They worried they would not be allowed back.

As managing editor of the paper at the time, I was dismayed and, frankly, enraged by the fact that any of our journalists felt pressured enough by the political climate to want to self-censor. The former student’s article was about the emotional challenges of transitioning to college. It was a deeply personal and moving piece, and one that other students might greatly benefit from reading — even those who might strongly disagree with their politics. Taking down the author’s name would remove that intimacy and destroy the soul of the piece.

But this was not an isolated case. Far from it. During my time at the paper, the editor-in-chief and I received an unprecedented number of emails from current and former student journalists requesting that they be made anonymous or that their articles be entirely removed from The Daily’s website. Some had graduated years ago but still worried that their pro-Palestinian or anti-Trump essays could draw attention from the administration. Many of them were international students or graduates now on a work visa, living in fear of being sent home because they had voiced a forbidden opinion.

This wasn’t just Michigan either. There’s a disturbing nationwide trend of student journalists making similar requests to avoid deportation or other repercussions for their protected speech. Hofstra University’s The Hofstra Chronicle approved their first anonymity request in four years because the writer, a legal resident of the United States, feared retribution for expressing liberal views. At the University of Florida’s The Independent Florida Alligator, editors described how they repeatedly saw international students who didn’t want to write about politics. Not because they didn’t have anything to say, but out of fear. 

This comes in the shadow of the federal government targeting international students — including student journalists — for their speech. Let’s not forget that last year, ICE agents arrested Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, claiming without evidence that she had ties to terrorist activity. But court documents show the real reason was an opinion piece she co-wrote in which she criticized her university’s response to the war in Gaza. Or the fact that FIRE is currently representing The Stanford Daily in a lawsuit challenging provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration have used to target foreign nationals for pro-Palestinian speech. In the complaint, we explain that several Stanford Daily contributors decided not to publish or asked the newspaper to remove previously published articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to the threat of visa revocation.

The situation is so bad now that a collection of student media groups — including Associated Collegiate Press, the College Media Association, and the Student Press Law Center — even issued an alert advising student publications to ease longstanding takedown and anonymity policies in light of these new risks. This is striking, as journalists have historically exercised caution when granting anonymity to maintain credibility and provide an ethical account of history.

This is, of course, not a critique of anonymous speech. On the contrary, anonymity has served as a tool throughout the history of our nation to protect speakers from the potential consequences of unpopular or dissident speech. In the 1995 Supreme Court case McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Court wrote: 

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation — and their ideas from suppression — at the hand of an intolerant society.

In their essay “Anonymous speech is as American as apple pie,” FIRE’s Carrie Robison and Daniel Ortner remind us that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pen name “Publius,” while Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, addressing “the inhabitants of America,” without signing his name.

What is concerning, therefore, is not that student journalists are making use of their constitutional right to anonymity. Rather, it’s the driving force behind the rising frequency of these requests. The government only needs to make examples out of a handful of people — Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, and Moshen Mahdawi — to create a chilling effect that will cause others to silence or mask their voices rather than let them ring.

I wholeheartedly support the right of student journalists to remain anonymous. But no former student journalist who graduated years ago should have to dig through every article they’ve ever published and reflect on what’s safe to say.