On Thursday, Jan. 16, staff members of The Argonaut, KUOI, Blot and University Avenue Agency received an email from the University of Idaho Dean of Students’ office with a stop work order, effective immediately.
As we investigated this order, it appeared that nobody knew where it had come from. Including, apparently, the Dean of Students himself, Blaine Eckles.
However, we were informed last fall that, starting this semester, UI would be moving The Argonaut staff to university employees, questionably putting us under university control. This was far from the independence we value. This was far from the university’s claims of protecting free speech.
According to Eckles, these changes came about due to high turnover in various departments last semester, where new HR employees did not understand the different classifications between Student Media and other jobs on campus.
In our self-initiated discussions with university administrators, we were assured that the change in our payment system and the stop work order had nothing to do with restricting our freedom as a press. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure that will always be the case, which is why we felt strongly about remaining independent contractors. It is not only important to us, but important for future generations of Argonaut staff members who should be able to report on important issues without worries regarding their payroll.
The stop work order caused a lot of outrage and concern among Student Media members for a multitude of reasons. The breaking point was when our Student Media Advisor, our main channel for updates on employment, was prohibited from speaking to Student Media employees during this period.
The Student Press Law Center has warned about the risks of student media organizations coming under the discretion of universities and becoming traditional employees for a long time. Such moves could force student journalists to disclose private information and records of anonymous sources, or prohibit them from reporting on any educational matters vaguely deemed “education records” under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Likely one of the most significant restrictions would be that of political speech and endorsements: most states, including Idaho, do not allow public employees to engage in political speech while working. For The Argonaut, this would effectively destroy our ability to provide political information to the community. We have struggled contacting university faculty and staff as sources for the same reason; they are not able to engage in any political speech for fear of employment repercussions.
The Argonaut has proudly been an independent news organization since its founding in 1898. We are funded by student fees and our own advertising revenue.
In the proposed transition to a new payroll system, we understood the importance of needing our documents to be in order to legally pay us. What we didn’t understand is why HR and Payroll did not communicate with us whatsoever regarding this until four days after we began working. It was at that point the stop work order was issued following the university’s concerns about accumulating fines for employees working illegally. When these issues were finally relayed to us, at a point far too late in the process, they were done in a confusing and disrespectful manner, and a timeline for resolving the issue was never communicated.
As one faculty member said, “A bureaucrat can’t stop the work of student journalists. Someone in the Payroll Office ought to be able to figure this out without forbidding students to work.” The stop work order was overkill. The university should have been able to create some sort of alternative, temporary solution.
Throughout all of this, one question was never truly answered: when the stop work order was issued, were they telling us that we couldn’t publish at all, or were they simply telling us we weren’t going to be paid until paperwork was completed? Every time we asked, the question was danced around. “The university does not want to censor The Argonaut.” “The university values freedom of the press.” “We just can’t violate labor laws.”
When we suggested volunteering our time to publish, they said it could potentially be misconstrued as coercion. But still, it wasn’t that we weren’t allowed to publish…except, of course, that we felt like we couldn’t publish. Why wouldn’t they give us a straight answer? Because that might be admitting to unconstitutional censorship.
On Jan. 21, The Argonaut met with Eckles, Barb Smith—the assistant responsible for the stop work order email—as well as HR representative Andrew Ertle and the Director of Student Involvement, Brandon Brackett, to discuss our payroll situation and come to an agreement. In this meeting, they told us that we would be reverting back to the old system of payment.
The delay and confusion caused a five-day delay in publishing Argonaut content online.
The end result: The Argonaut remains independent. Student Media employees will continue to be private contractors, not I-9 employees. A majority of the staff, excluding those that already had work authorization cards—a significant portion—submitted background checks, scrambled to retrieve documents and went to HR for nothing. But, despite halting all publication for nearly a week, we are back. We are able to work without penalties.
To all student journalists: the most important thing for you to do, ever, is to know your rights. Make sure your voice is being heard.
We want to be clear: The Argonaut will never work for the university. If UI attempts to change our payroll system in the future, we encourage them to invite The Argonaut to the decision-making table.
At a time when the news industry is hurting economically, newspapers are shutting down across the country and there are worldwide threats to journalism, this has only proven our dedication to our freedom. We will continue to advocate for a degree of separation from the university to uphold our commitment to student journalism and the freedom of the press.
The Argonaut is proud to be For, Of and By the Students, and we refuse to be anything less.
Ann Chenault
Thank you for your fight to keep independent press and information alive and available to everyone.
Tyson Carpenter
This is disgusting! As a former alumn of both The Argonaut and KUOI, I know how special both of these institutions are, and they need to be in the hands of the students! It sounds very much like some person who knows nothing about how any of this works is making dumb decisions that are beyond their mental grasp.