You have to admire the tenacity of these young people.

Claire Torstenbo reported at the College Fix.

Student journalists launch indie newspaper while their censorship lawsuit plays out

Administrators harassing you? Try GoFundMe

Iowa student journalists who sued their college in May, for letting faculty and staff “intimidate and harass” them owing to their news coverage, aren’t waiting for the legal process to play out.

A handful of former staff at Muscatine Community College’s Calumet, newly graduated, went rogue and launched their own newspaper last week, aptly named The Spotlight, with ongoing help from their old faculty advisers.

That may be a wise choice: Leaders of another Midwestern student newspaper just withdrew a lawsuit against their school on similar grounds, following a setback in court.

The allegations of top-down harassment against Calumet staff go back to nearly two years.

After the paper ran a story about a two-time “Student of the Month” award winner, the student senate’s faculty adviser – the award winner’s uncle – filed an equal employment opportunity complaint against Jim Compton, the paper’s adviser.

Muscatine hired a private investigator, who coerced reporters to “participate in interviews” about Compton without legal counsel; Compton was removed from his full-time position as adviser and issued a “letter of discipline”; and journalism classes were moved into inconvenient time slots while The Calumet’s budget was slashed by more than half, the suit claimed.

The incoming dean also told the paper after it ran his headshot that it needed permission to run any photographs in the future, as The College Fix noted then.

No more walking on eggshells

The Spotlight raised a staggering $5,000 in the first three days of its GoFundMe campaign, or 10 times the staff’s goal for the first edition. Donations are still flowing in, and members of the Society of Professional Journalists have promised to match donations up to $500. The paper is available in print form at several local businesses.