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Tuesday, Jan. 21
The Indiana Daily Student

opinion opinion

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Some thoughts on IDS editorial policies

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The decline in local news outlets in recent decades is harmful to American democracy.  This highlights the value of the IDS not only for the IU Bloomington campus but also for the City of Bloomington and the surrounding area — for all of us.   

It is thus important that readers of the IDS be aware of editorial policies the IDS has adopted, especially for opinion columns, in regard to Gaza.  One of these policies is to not allow authors of opinion pieces to compare or draw analogies between the mass extermination of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel and “the Holocaust.”  A second is to require authors to include “I believe” in any statement affirming that “there’s genocide in Gaza.”    

I learned of these two closely related editorial policies in an email of 12/17/24 from Marissa Meador, co-editor-in-chief of the IDS.  Ms. Meador had emailed me to inform me of the rejection of an essay I had written since published on the Academe blog of the American Association of University Professors — about the production at the Jacobs School of Music of the opera “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.”  That opera, like Michael Chabon’s novel it is based on, is about the Holocaust; for me, the opera also spoke about the genocide that “I believe” is happening in Gaza now (words in quotation marks added here to conform to IDS editorial policy). 

I urge readers to think about whether the IDS editorial policies that Ms. Meador shared with me are compatible with, or are instead violations of, a principled commitment to free expression and inquiry.   

In addition, allow me to note that Israel’s actions in Gaza have been recognized as genocide—as a matter of documented fact, not opinion—by many prominent human right organizations, including: Al-Haq, Amnesty International, Genocide Watch, Human Rights Watch, the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide, and Médicins Sin Frontairs 

As we start the new year, let us all hope for and do everything possible to achieve a new year without genocide. 

Daniel A. Segal is the Jean M. Pitzer Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and History at Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges, a past fellow of the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and a member of the coordinating committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Indiana.  

Editor’s note: The IDS has a high standard for its guest columns, seeking diverse and nuanced opinions with strong sourcing and fact-checking. The IDS seeks to balance its responsibilities toward furthering free inquiry and expression with minimizing harm to the community. Over the past three semesters, the IDS has rejected columns from a variety of viewpoints on the Israel-Hamas war because they did not fit this standard. While we have informal guidelines, the decision to accept or reject a guest column ultimately rests with the current student management staff of the IDS, which typically changes each semester. The IDS is working on publishing its current guidelines to enhance clarity and transparency. In the meantime, readers are free to reach out to editor@idsnews.com with questions or concerns.

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