Former Indiana University Director of Student Media James Rodenbush has sued the university for wrongful termination after he was fired for not limiting the Oct. 16 issue of the Indiana Daily Student to only Homecoming content.
According to the complaint, which was filed on Oct. 30, Rodenbush said the school violated his First and 14th Amendment rights with the firing.
The IDS, previously a weekly paper, recently cut printing to just seven special edition issues a semester as a cost-cutting measure to reduce the paper’s deficit, which in July 2024 was nearly $1 million. The IU Media School wiped this debt, according to an IDS article, and implemented a Student Media Plan to prevent another deficit from building. The plan included the “strategic reduction in the IDS print edition” as well as a consolidation of the school’s three outlets, including WIUX Student Radio and Indiana University Student Television, into one multiplatform, “revenue-generating” network, the plan said.
According to Rodenbush’s complaint, in the spring 2025 semester, Media School Associate Dean Galen Clavio said that university administrators were frustrated with the fact that the special editions printed news coverage. Administrators directed Rodenbush to tell the paper to stop publishing news, despite the paper being editorially independent from the university.
According to the complaint, “the IDS had been instructed to print only fluff pieces about IU’s upcoming homecoming and no news” for their Oct. 16 edition.
“The Administration’s guidance that the IDS restrict their content to propaganda about IU’s football program and the appurtenant pageantry was an expectation,” it said.
According to the complaint, at another meeting in September 2025, Rodenbush “told Clavio that he did not control what students published in the IDS” and said that telling the students what they could publish was the “definition of censorship.”
The complaint said that in an October meeting, Rodenbush told administrators that he refused to dictate what the IDS could publish. Five days later, he was fired.
“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” the termination letter from Media School Dean David Tolchinsky read. “As a result, leadership has lost trust in your ability to lead and communicate appropriately on behalf of the University.”
The IDS co-editors-in-chief Mila Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller asked the school to rescind the order, and the next day, IDS print publication was cut entirely.
In a letter to the IDS editors, Tolchinsky said that the printing cut was not due to the content of the newspaper.
“As you know, a personnel decision was made on our campus regarding a staff member engaged with the IDS,” he wrote. “The juxtaposition of the personnel matter and the budget-related decision to pause printing of the IDS fueled a perception that editorial content drove the decision not to print. Let me be clear: my decision had nothing to do with editorial content of the IDS.”
In his letter, Tolchinsky said he was allowing IDS editors “to use their established budget through June 30, 2026, as the editors see fit — so long as they remain true to their budgetary parameters.”
The paper can print what it wants until the end of June, when the Media School’s Task Force on Editorial Independence and Financial Sustainability of Student Media (for which the composition has not yet been announced) can create a plan to uphold the university’s values while addressing financial issues.
Rodenbush is seeking monetary compensation for “embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, and mental anguish,” along with compensation for the “malicious conduct” of the school and repayment of his legal fees, with interest. He is looking to be fully reinstated to his position as director of student media at the university as well.