Harvard Crimson comes under fire by activists after contacting ICE for comment on a news story

On Sept. 13, 2019, The Harvard Crimson ran a news story about a campus rally advocating abolition of  the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Several days after the article was published, sponsors of the campus rally complained that it had included a sentence saying its authors had contacted ICE for comment, but that the agency did not reply. A petition was subsequently circulated, demanding that The Crimson stop calling the agency and that it “apologize for the harm they inflicted on the undocumented community” with the call already made. The then-president of The Crimson insisted that the paper’s reporting practices were consistent with normal journalistic standards. 

Key Players

The Harvard Crimson is the daily student newspaper at Harvard University. The Crimson, founded in 1837, is the oldest continuously published college daily in the country. Kristine E. Guillaume, a senior at Harvard, was president of The Crimson at the time of the controversy; she subsequently received a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. 

Act on a Dream is a student group at Harvard dedicated to supporting and advocating for the immigrant community on campus and beyond, according to the organization’s website. The student-led group has four pillars: advocating for legislative measures; building a community on campus that welcomes all migrants; urging Harvard administrators to increase support for students without documentation; and engaging in service that helps the undocumented community.  

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement. 

Harvard’s Undergraduate Council, the student government at Harvard, has 51 student members. 

Further Details

A line in the Sept. 13 article stated that The Crimson had contacted ICE with a request for comment on the rally, but that the agency did not respond. Act on a Dream, which organized the rally that was the basis for the article, denounced The Crimson’s reporting, writing on Twitter three days after the article was published that reaching out to ICE “is an active threat to our community of undocumented students.” Act on a Dream also generated an online petition on Oct. 11, 2019, almost a month later, demanding that The Crimson never contact ICE again. As of Jan. 5, 2020, the petition had nearly 1,050 signatures.

The petition urges The Crimson to show its commitment to protecting students without documentation on campus. “In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping them off, regardless of how they are contacted,” the petition reads. More than 15 student groups at Harvard, including Harvard College Democrats and the Colombian Students Association, also signed on to the petition, which calls “on The Crimson to take public accountability for their actions and take steps to change a policy that actively endangers undocumented students and members of their own staff.”

After the petition surfaced online, Harvard’s Undergraduate Council passed a statement in support of Act on a Dream’s concerns over The Crimson’s reporting. The statement passed on a 15-13-4 vote, and in an email sent to students, the Council expressed its support for Act on a Dream’s grievances. “It is necessary for the Undergraduate Council to acknowledge the concerns raised by numerous groups and students on campus over the past few weeks and to recognize the validity of their expressed fear and feelings of unsafety,” the email read.

The Council is not boycotting The Crimson, according to Fernando Urbina, a sophomore at Harvard who co-sponsored the legislation. The statement “is simply a stepping stone that we recognize the concerns of Act on a Dream and undocumented students on campus, and we can begin and continue having conversations with these groups and finding solutions,” Urbina said.  

The Crimson has stood by its reporting, writing in a note to readers that the steps taken to produce the article, particularly the ones that had come under fire, are consistent with professional journalistic standards in the United States. “Foremost among those standards is the belief that every party named in a story has a right to comment or contest criticism leveled against them,” the note read.

Crimson staff also met with representatives of Act on a Dream to hear their concerns and to explain the publication’s policy, according to Guillaume. “Fundamental journalistic values obligate The Crimson to allow all subjects of a story a chance to comment,” Guillaume wrote in an emailed statement to the staff of The Crimson. “This policy demonstrates a commitment to ensuring that the individuals and institutions we write about have an opportunity to respond to criticisms in order to ensure a fair and unbiased story.”

In the aftermath of the incident, journalism professors from across the country and other students at Harvard University expressed support for The Crimson’s reporting practices. Doug Fisher, a former Associated Press correspondent and journalism professor at the University of South Carolina, called the criticism raised against The Crimson “a fundamental, basic misunderstanding or a deliberate refusal to understand what journalists do and how they do it.” Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin echoed Fisher’s sentiment, writing on Twitter that the paper’s editor “handle[d] this perfectly.” Gabe Fox-Peck, a senior at Harvard, also upheld the paper’s decision. “The best arguments take into account the counterargument,” Fox-Peck told The Christian Science Monitor. “I don’t think that just speaking to an opposition force, even if it’s dangerous, is a problem. I think that’s a good thing.” 

Columnists and commentators from across the political spectrum also endorsed The Crimson’s policies and standards, but critics insisted those policies were not always uniformly applied.  

Outcome 

Student group protests outside The Crimson’s building 

On Nov. 15, 2019, roughly 50 students, including some current and former Crimson staff members, protested outside of the newspaper’s building over its coverage of the “Abolish ICE” rally. The protest was organized in support of the petition circulated by Act on a Dream. During the demonstration, which happened the same day as Champagne Showers, The Crimson’s annual celebration of new leadership, protesters chanted, “New guard, don’t let us down” and “Champagne won’t wash away undocu voices.” 

In an emailed statement, Guillaume supported the acceptance of reader feedback that disagreed with The Crimson. “We respect the right to protest The Crimson’s policies and welcome free expression of views different from ours,” she wrote. 

More than a thousand people sign petition demanding The Crimson apologize for calling ICE for comment and never do so again

As of Jan. 28, the petition circulated by Act on a Dream had garnered 1,041 signatures and 17 student groups had endorsed it.  The hope was widely expressed that tensions between The Crimson and other student groups would gradually subside.