Will an op-ed in a student paper get someone deported?

I got a little obsessed this week about some student journalists I’ve never met.

After news broke that a Tufts graduate student (who’s also a Fulbright scholar) was arrested on her way to break fast during Ramadan, I was shocked to read that it might have something to do with an op-ed in the student paper.

I dug in.

Tufts doesn’t have a journalism school, and my read of their website indicated that they don’t have an adviser. What The Tufts Daily does have is dozens and dozens of student reporters and editors who are now busy covering the fallout and protests, and writing editorials. While Rumeysa Ozturk wasn’t a staff member, I started fixating not just on her, but what the student editors must be feeling, thinking and doing — a flare up of my Mama Bear syndrome.

I reached out to the staff and heard back from their editor-in-chief, who politely and professionally declined to comment.

Right about then came this statement from the Student Press Law Center. I got to breathe a sigh of relief that the student journalism community was rallying around Ozturk, the Tufts journalists and the entire situation.

All of this begs some questions I’d like you to ponder, especially among colleagues, in class, and in your student newsrooms. 

You know how hard it is to ask for money?