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May 7, 2024 Update: After the below letter was sent, Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock submitted a letter to the editor to The Dartmouth stating, among other things, that “the student journalists for The Dartmouth who were on the Green to report on the protests should not have been arrested for doing their jobs. We are working with local authorities to ensure this error is corrected.”
Expressing deep concern about the arrests of two Dartmouth College student journalists, a coalition of 15 national journalism organizations today called for charges against the students to be dropped.
Charlotte Hampton and Alesandra “Dre” Gonzales, staffers at student newspaper The Dartmouth (or “The D“), were reporting on and photographing the arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters on campus May 1 when police pulled them from a group of other journalists, zip tied their hands and took them to a police station. They were charged with criminal trespass and later released on bond.
The D demanded on Thursday that the college “do everything in its power to get the relevant authorities to drop the charges.” The next day, a college spokesperson responded: “We understand The Dartmouth staff members who were taken into custody believe that occurred in error. We stand behind their right to vindicate that belief through the legal process.”
But in a letter sent today to Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock and Prosecutor Mariana C. Pastore, the press freedom groups said the arrests set “a dangerous precedent, harms the public’s right to know and defies Dartmouth’s commitments to students’ expressive and press rights.” The letter, spearheaded by SPLC and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the arrests substantially harms other student journalists’ ability to gather news on campus moving forward, at a time when the world relies on their coverage to understand what is happening on campus.
“Further,” the letter also said, “charging the journalists with trespass — on their own campus — when Dartmouth had knowledge of and approved their presence defies logic.”
In addition to SPLC and FIRE, the letter was signed by the College Media Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, Defending Rights & Dissent, Freedom of the Press Foundation, National Press Club, National Press Club Journalism Institute, National Press Photographers Association, PEN America, Radio Television Digital News Association, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Society of Environmental Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists and Women Press Freedom.
SPLC and our partners demand the city prosecutor drop the charges. We also call on Dartmouth to insist on the charges’ dismissal, to end any pursuit of further discipline against the students, and to work with security and law enforcement agencies to ensure student journalists will not be subject to arrest in the future.
As The D said: “The College should be embarrassed. We expect a prompt and public apology from College President Sian Leah Beilock.”
The Student Press Law Center (splc.org) is a nonpartisan nonprofit working at the intersection of education, journalism and the law to promote, support and defend the free press rights of student journalists and their advisers. SPLC provides information, training and legal assistance at no charge to high school and college student journalists and the educators who work with them.