Free speech has been a topic on all of our minds recently, but perhaps no one more than Jim Rodenbush.

Rodenbush was fired from his job as Director of Student Media at Indiana State University for refusing to censor the students working at the newspaper. The school didn’t want any bad press on its hands, as it feared it would lose students.

However, there is more to this story than meets the eye.

The reason the school was so wary of bad press went much further than being camera-shy. Three years ago, the school had several protests against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the U.S. support of it. In reaction to this, the state of Indiana stepped in and created a law that allowed the governor to fire and hire members of the board of the college at will.

All of this is a ploy by the governor to gain more control of the university and just increase executive power as a whole, and yet another example of authoritarianism sneaking its way into this country.

To get a better understanding of the situation, I sat down with the man for an interview.

Wapner: “Why do you think you were let go?”

Rodenbush: “I was let go because I didn’t follow through on their wish to have news removed from the newspaper. Whatever is happening now is a setback, due to financial reasons.

They didn’t want any parents or visitors to see headlines that wouldn’t fall in line with the image the university wanted to portray itself as having.”

Wapner: “Do you think things would have gone differently if all of this had gone down at a different time?”

Rodenbush: “Absolutely, this happened because IU received budget cuts at different levels from both the governor of Indiana and because the governor chooses the seat on the board of the college. After the protests for Palestine, the school is trying to do its best to stay out of the news.”

Wapner: “Do you think the outcome of this case will affect future legal cases on the subject of free speech?”

Rodenbush: “I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around what happened. It’s possible this thing happens and has effects that determine free speech law.”