Actions against journalists

Nashville Scene journalist Eli Motyca was arrested while reporting on the Kirkland Hall sit-in on March 26, and he was released on the same day with no charges pressed. In a statement to The Hustler, a university representative claimed Motyka was arrested because Kirkland Hall was “closed to the public for ongoing construction.”  

“Journalistically, Vanderbilt’s response to the pro-Palestine protests were more intense and punitive than in the past,” Motyca said. “It was quite adversarial, both in the tone and the speech that students were employing but also the response from the university. They both clearly imagined the other as their adversary in the situation.”

Following Motyca’s arrest, Vanderbilt conducted an independent legal review investigating the arrest and Vanderbilt’s media access policies. The report concluded that Motycka was not arrested to impede media coverage of the protest but because he repeatedly attempted to enter Kirkland Hall. 

“Police power is a very significant thing because it is counter to a free society to be put in handcuffs and to be forcibly moved somewhere,” Motyca said. “So when [arrests happen], without such justifications, it’s important to pay attention to the decision to use that power. And Vanderbilt’s decision to use that power, in my case, reflects the level of control that the administration and the campus was comfortable employing.”

Journalists nationwide were met with obstacles while attempting to cover the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses. At the University of California, Los Angeles, four student journalists claimed they were assaulted by counterprotestors. Tyler Davis, a junior at American University and Managing Editor of The Eagle, discussed the challenges that come with student journalism, particularly in covering friends and peers, in an interview with The Hustler.

“The difficulty of being a student journalist is having to report on and take photos of people that you go to class with and you see in clubs that you attend and you hang out with on the quad,” Davis said. “Then you have to turn around and be like, ‘I know we’re friends, but I have to be completely detached from that in order to do my job properly.’ It’s just a lot.”