Fearing legal repercussions, online harassment, and professional consequences, student journalists are withdrawing their names from published articles amid an escalating crackdown by the Trump administration on students believed to be linked to the pro-Palestinian movement, The Guardian reported on Monday.

According to reports, college newspaper editors say concern among writers has grown since the arrest of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, currently in ICE custody, while attempting to resist deportation efforts. While the government has not cited evidence to support its decision to revoke her visa, she wrote an opinion piece last year in a student newspaper critical of Israel, raising concerns that simply expressing opinions in writing is now considered sufficient grounds for deportation.

Ozturk is one of nearly a dozen students or researchers detained by immigration authorities since March 8, when Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and green card holder, was arrested and placed under deportation proceedings for his role in pro-Palestinian protests. Student editors report particularly acute concerns among international students who have contributed to their newspapers, but they say requests to remove stories for fear of retaliation are also coming from US citizens.

At Columbia University, Adam Kinder, editor of the Columbia Political Review, said the university newspaper was asked to remove nearly a dozen articles and halt publication of more than a dozen others in response to mounting pressure in recent weeks. His team complied with those requests. "For students who disagree with the Trump administration's position, they fear real retaliation," Kinder said.

At Stanford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, the Stanford Daily has also seen an increase in takedown requests in recent weeks, according to its editor-in-chief, Greta Reich. “I got one, then two, then five, then 10—and the requests started piling up pretty quickly,” Reich said. She added that the requests ranged from sources requesting anonymity, to opinion writers wanting their names removed, to even demands to blur identifying photos. According to Reich, one former editor, a foreign student, resigned rather than face a potential confrontation. “They didn’t want to be associated with any publication or article that might get them into trouble,” she said.

Three Kinder (Columbia Review) writers also resigned, and four others stopped working for fear that their association with certain articles could jeopardize their safety or careers.

This growing threat prompted a coalition of national student press organizations to issue an alert on Friday calling on student newspapers to reconsider long-standing editorial standards regarding story non-printing and anonymity.

The alert states: "What we are proposing today goes against the teaching and guidance we, as journalism educators, have provided to our students over the years. These are not easy editorial decisions, but these are not normal times."

Content removal requests present familiar ethical dilemmas in any newsroom, and student newspapers are no exception, as young editors must balance high-stakes safety concerns with the journalistic value of transparency. Some are exploring alternatives to outright deletion, such as de-indexing controversial articles—removing them from search results while keeping them published on their websites.

An editor at an Ivy League university, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said their newspaper is currently considering this approach. “It’s becoming clear that there’s no perfect solution,” they added. “If you delete an article or leave it full of holes, it’s clear something’s happened. That could attract more attention.” They also noted that removing articles entirely could backfire, as the content often remains available through web archives, including the Wayback Machine.

At the University of Virginia, the Cavalier Daily has historically rejected removal requests, but its editor, Naima Sawaya, acknowledged that the current situation is different. She said, "One of our staff members, an immigrant, was forced to resign from the editorial board after we published articles about Trump's policies toward universities, specifically regarding immigrants and pro-Palestinian activism." She added that the university's Office of International Studies informed the student that publicly affiliating with these articles could jeopardize his visa status.

Sawaya has always viewed the newspaper as an archive. "We try to assure our staff when they join that what they write becomes part of the historical record," she said. Recent concerns about student safety have begun to call into question this view. "If a staff member today asked for a past article to be removed for their own safety, I would delete it," she admitted.

At New York University's Washington Square News, editor Yazan Saadeh said that although his paper does not publish anonymous articles, staff are finding ways to respond to at-risk contributors. "Some staff have withdrawn from reporting roles due to safety concerns, but they still contribute to other editorial tasks," he said. An editor at California State University (who also spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity) said their newsroom had seen a significant increase in anonymity requests since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began detaining international students—from opinion writers seeking to remove their names from articles critical of Israel or Trump, to sources seeking to anonymize their quotes. They said international students were now willing to speak to journalists on condition of anonymity. "Most of the requests come from international students, though domestic students have also expressed concerns," they said.

Last February, the Purdue Exponent, a student newspaper at Purdue University in Indiana, removed the names and photos of student protesters advocating for Palestinian human rights from its website, citing safety concerns and the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics, which prioritizes harm reduction. The newspaper declared in an editorial: "Pro-Palestine students are under attack, so we're removing their names." The newspaper immediately found itself at the center of a heated debate about journalistic ethics, and its editor reportedly received more than 7,000 emails, including death threats.

Mike Hiestand, an attorney with the Student Press Law Center, told the newspaper that while student media outlets have traditionally resisted takedown requests, the current climate has forced a reassessment. "The reluctance to comply with takedown requests stems from a world that existed before January 2025," Hiestand added.

Lindsay Rank, director of campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also emphasized how much the risk environment has changed. “If one of these cases had called our hotline six months ago, our response would have been, ‘This isn’t really a legal issue. It’s more of a moral issue.’ But that has changed,” she said.

Sawaya, of the Cavalier Daily, hasn't deleted any articles yet. But like other editors, Helen is grappling with the impact of the new political reality on the field she hopes to enter after graduating. "One of the hardest things right now is getting people to talk to us—even those who are supposed to talk to us, like university communications officers," she says. "I feel like there's a real fear."