Harvard Crimson Faces Campus Backlash for Asking ICE to Comment on a Story
“In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping them off, regardless of how they are contacted”
In September, students at Harvard held a protest against ICE. The student newspaper The Harvard Crimson covered the protest and as part of their story, asked ICE for comment.
Now the campus left has focused their outrage on the paper.
Morgan Phillips reports at FOX News:
Harvard student newspaper facing backlash for requesting comment from ICE
The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student-run newspaper, is facing a campus backlash after requesting comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for an article on a campus protest against the agency.
Eleven student groups, including the Harvard College Democrats, signed a petition accusing the Harvard Crimson of showing cultural insensitivity for even contacting the government agency.
On Sept. 12, students advocating for the abolition of ICE assembled for a rally organized by student group Act on a Dream in Harvard Yard. After the protest concluded, the paper reached out to an ICE spokesperson to ask for a statement in response to the protest for an upcoming story.
Soon after, Act on a Dream published a petition, which currently has over 650 signatures, demanding The Crimson change its policies so that none of its reporters ever make contact with ICE again and apologize for the “harm [it] inflicted on the undocumented community.” It also demanded the paper declare its commitment to protecting undocumented students. The organization called on other groups to boycott speaking to the paper until it agrees to the demands.
The paper did not give ICE any information about the student protesters, but the Harvard Democrats are accusing them of “calling ICE on students.”
We’re not talking to @thecrimson until they stop calling ICE on students, and we urge our members to sign Act on a Dream’s petition here -> https://t.co/QpHhS9eAbt
Read our full statement below? pic.twitter.com/5E24tT6hmM
— Harvard College Democrats (@HarvardDems) October 17, 2019
The Crimson has been forced to respond to this with an explanation of why they contacted ICE.
Angela N. Fu and Kristine E. Guillaume write:
A Note To Readers
To our readers:
Last month, The Crimson covered a rally organized by campus group Act on a Dream that called for the abolition of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During the course of our reporting, Crimson reporters requested comment from ICE — a decision that has proved controversial with many of our readers. We stand behind that decision, and we wanted to share with you our thinking.
The Crimson exists because of a belief that an uninformed campus would be a poorer one — that our readers have the right to be informed about the place where they live, work, and study. In pursuit of that goal, we seek to follow a commonly accepted set of journalistic standards, similar to those followed by professional news organizations big and small…
Let us be clear: In The Crimson’s communication with ICE’s media office, the reporters did not provide the names or immigration statuses of any individual at the protest. We did not give ICE forewarning of the protest, nor did we seek to interfere with the protest as it was occuring. Indeed, it is The Crimson’s practice to wait until a protest concludes before asking for comment from the target of the protest — a rule which was followed here. The Crimson’s outreach to ICE only consisted of public information and a broad summary of protestors’ criticisms. As noted in the story, ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
Justine Coleman of The Hill has details on the petition calling for a boycott of the Crimson:
More than 670 people have signed onto a petition condemning the Crimson for reaching out to ICE. The petition states that the student newspaper demonstrated “cultural insensitivity” by reaching out to ICE, and that it needs to “prioritize the safety of the student body they are reporting on.”
“In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping them off, regardless of how they are contacted,” the petition states.
The signers of the petition are requesting the newspaper apologize for “the harm they inflicted on the undocumented community,” and that it adjust its policies that require them to contact ICE for comment and “declare their commitment to protecting undocumented students on campus.”
Everyone is getting in on the action:
Until @thecrimson stops calling ICE on their fellow students, our organization will not be providing comments for their articles. We encourage our fellow campus organizers to do the same. pic.twitter.com/ygDnad5d1l
— Harvard College Dems For Warren (@Harvard4Warren) October 16, 2019
Protect the undocumented. Boycott the Crimson. pic.twitter.com/jTSNsGPr74
— Harvard PSC (@HarvardPSC) October 22, 2019
All of this campus outrage over ICE began with Trump’s presidency. Someone should tell these students that the agency existed before November of 2016.
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Comments
We fought so hard not be be governed by mob rule. Now leftists mobs run rampant — protected by leftist judges and politicians.
Attempting to commit journalism. Surely a capital offense.
Making it easier to figure out who not to hire when they eventually graduate from the Harvard school of perpetual outrage.
This is how the Chinese started their bloody revolution. Do we really want to imitate one of the world’s bloodiest, oppressive, failed regimes?
I wonder if any of these idiots protesting ICE realize that they will loose as much as 20% of their income over a lifetime due to wage depression caused bi illegal immigration??
To the left there are never two sides to a story, to an issue.
Their side and their side only. Of course Pravda would be proud; its tradition continues.
“In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping them off, regardless of how they are contacted”
You mean like when ICE does its job by following the federal law which created ICE, and the Democrat mayor of Oakland*, as a proxy for the left generally, tips off the targeted illegals?
http://patterico.com/2018/02/28/oakland-mayor-libby-schaaf-tried-to-protect-illegal-immigrants-like-this-from-ice/
*Utter contempt for the rule of law. This Democrat mayor, like all officials in all 50 states, took the Article VI oath, the one containing the Supremacy Clause, “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof,” including the law creating ICE.
What then is the value of an oath of a Democrat?
Yet again we see it. In The Coming of the Third Reich (2003), historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” To express dissent from Nazi positions became a matter of taking one’s life into one’s hands. The idea of people of opposing viewpoints airing their disagreements in a civil and mutually respectful manner was gone. One was a Nazi, or one was silent (and fearful).
Today’s fascists call themselves “anti-fascists.” Just like the Nazis, they are totalitarian: they are determined not to allow their opponents to murmur the slightest whisper of dissent. Forcibly suppressing the speech of someone with whom one disagrees is a quintessentially fascist act.
These fascists will target you for destruction if you oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women & others or if you object to have your country overrun with illegals which in addition you (taxation) and your descendants (taxation & public debt) are forced to pay for.
Democrats – thy name is Force.
Academia as we know it today is descending into Leninist thuggery. Dissenters from the party line must be eliminated.
How dare a reporter make contact with somebody Not Of The Narrative!
You can always tell a Harvard man. You just can’t tell him much.
Snowflake leftist a-holes.
Journalistic integrity demands that you ask at least ask the target of a hit piece for comment.
“Journalistic integrity”, or indeed integrity of any kind, is a bourgeois concept. It elevates the individual conscience above the collective, and above the class struggle. A proper Marxist must dispense with it.
I read elsewhere that the paper is not backing down.
Surprising, but good.
https://news.yahoo.com/harvard-student-newspaper-chooses-ethical-003828155.html