Whitman College’s student newspaper publishes cease-and-desist letter from dean

In the office of the Whitman Wire, the student newspaper of Whitman College, there are bags of candy, printouts of inside jokes and leftover copies of its recent editions. 

There is also a letter in a frame. On it, a handwritten pink sticky note says: “Never bow down 2 power!!”

The framed letter is from a lawyer for Kazi Joshua, Whitman’s dean of students, acting in his personal capacity. The lawyer wrote that the Wire must retract what he calls false and defamatory statements or potentially face legal action. The statements in question are from two investigative stories published by the newspaper about Whitman’s alleged mishandling of sexual violence and its prevention.

Though the letter was sent in December, the Wire decided to share it outside the confines of its office last week, publishing the letter in full both online and in its last print edition of the year. 

Nazaaha Penick, the Wire’s editor-in-chief, did so because she and the other reporters who worked on that story are about to graduate. She said they wanted students to know what happened and how they responded — in part, so they know the Wire has their backs. 

“We are going to remain unafraid,” Penick said. “We are going to continue to listen to our students. We are going to continue to do coverage that matters.” 

NWPB asked Whitman College about the Wire’s reporting and Joshua’s letter. The college declined to comment.

The Wire’s investigation began last September, when a student group called Sexual Violence Prevention held a protest instead of an orientation to kick off the school year. 

“Essentially, they ended the presentation with a warning to students saying, ‘You’re not going to be protected when you’re here,’” said Bex Heimbrock, a reporter and editor for the Wire. “And that was really intense. So I talked with them afterwards, and that’s when they shared with me that they’ve been hearing about this Title IX investigation.” 

Heimbrock, Penick and another student reporter, Natalie Comerford, spent the next three months reporting the story. They interviewed more than 15 sexual violence survivors as well as former and current Whitman staff. They also reviewed internal emails and documents that were shared by interview subjects. 

In October, they published their first piece: It reported that the state attorney general’s office was investigating Whitman for Title IX violations. Shortly after, they followed that with another story. It centered on the behavior of some administrators, including Joshua, surrounding issues of sexual violence and the funding of its prevention. 

The first story, Penick said, was the Wire’s most-read piece in at least a decade. It also garnered a lot of support from students, faculty and staff. 

Though the administration didn’t reach out to the Wire directly, Whitman President Sarah Bolton sent an email addressing concerns around sexual violence on Nov. 5, shortly after both stories had been published. Besides some emails from one staffer who’d been mentioned in the piece, the students said that was the only administrative response they received. 

That is, until the letter from Joshua’s lawyer, representing the dean in his personal capacity, arrived in December. 

Heimbrock was on their way to defend their senior thesis when they heard about the letter. They immediately started crying. 

“ I had spent the better part of three months listening to people talk about all of the different ways that they had been really seriously harmed by the actions of administrators,” Heimbrock said. “And it just felt like, once again, nobody was going to listen to them.” 

Heimbrock was so stressed by the letter that they began severely grinding their teeth, resulting in five dentist’s appointments in a single month. 

“ After not responding to three requests for comment, you know, this is the route that he decided to go down,” Heimbrock said. “As a student, particularly at this college, that kind of bills itself as a very supportive and progressive place, you never really expect that your dean is going to take an action like this, right? Especially when you know that your reporting is very thorough.” 

After receiving the letter, the students spent hours on the phone with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has a 24-hour hotline for student journalists. That organization connected the students with pro bono lawyers, who sent a response to Joshua that rebutted his claims. The Wire published that letter alongside Joshua’s last week. 

It’s been almost four months since that response was sent, and the students said they have not received a response. NWPB reached out to Joshua and his lawyer asking about the letter and whether they plan to pursue further legal action, but did not hear back. 

Whitman does not have a journalism department, and the Wire’s recent advisers have not had backgrounds in the field. The students said that’s one reason this year has been so challenging. 

The administration’s “lack of understanding of how journalism works is definitely a big disadvantage for us,” Penick said. “We don’t have journalism professors; we don’t have a journalism department. Everything that we’ve built, especially regarding this year, has been all with the students.” 

Penick did stress, however, that the students consulted with Andy Campbell, a senior editor and reporter at HuffPost, before publishing the investigation. They also worked with an advisory board of professional journalists afterward. (Disclosure: The author of this piece has been invited to volunteer on that board, but has not yet participated in any of its activities.) 

“The administration is not always going to be happy,” Heimbrock said. “But we’re an independent newspaper and we decide what is meaningful enough to publish.” 

Both Heimbrock and Penick stand by their reporting. And they said this experience has cemented their desires to pursue careers in journalism. 

“People in our generation are really hungry for change and hungry for news reporting that dives deeper and doesn’t take anything at face value,” Heimbrock said. “I think that’s part of what we’ve really been able to offer at the Wire. So the dream is to keep doing that — hopefully with less legal threats.”