BY JOHN K. WILSON

Last week, the Loyola Phoenix, the student newspaper of Loyola University Chicago, published a remarkable editorial about the repressive media policy on campus.

Loyola’s communications spokesperson, Evangeline Politis, had written to the student newspaper recently, angry that student journalists had dared to ask questions to faculty and staff at Loyola: “This is disrespectful and unacceptable. As I indicated in my email this morning (attached), I am the first point of contact for the Phoenix for University-related requests. I can get in touch with administration and faculty to answer your questions.”

As crazy as it seems, Politis was simply following Loyola’s official policy, which declares that every single question from the news media (including the student newspaper) must be channeled through the University Media Communications (UMC) office, who will then decide if faculty or staff will be allowed to answer. (In another editorial, the Loyola Phoenix published a long list of questions they actually had given to the communications office but never received an answer.)

Repressive campus media policies, it seems, are a new disease spreading rapidly across higher education that I’ve written about before. These college students at Loyola began to reminisce about the good old days, two years ago, when they were free to ask questions like journalists are supposed to do: “It didn’t used to be like this. Even just a couple of years ago, when many of the people on this Editorial Board were just starting at Loyola, Phoenix reporters were more than allowed to reach out to professors, administrators, department heads, Campus Safety personnel, heads of facilities and student activities coordinators.” According to the Loyola Phoenix, “dealing with Rooney’s administration is no better than a White House press briefing led by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”

Loyola’s media relations policy gives total control over media to the PR office: “UMC is responsible for initiating and/or responding to news media requests and managing those interactions.” That threatens the academic freedom of faculty, staff, and students to contact the media, and to respond to questions from the press.

Loyola’s terrible media policy also affects the rights of students and faculty to promote their own events: “If an event attracts news media interest, press releases and statements to the news media will be routed through, approved, and disseminated by the appropriate UMC team member.” What if the administration decides it doesn’t want to publicize an event that criticizes its policies? Under this rule, it’s a violation of university policy if anyone outside the PR office tells a journalist about an event happening on campus.

One of the worst parts of the media relations policy is tactic used by totalitarian governments of requiring minders to follow journalists everywhere they go on campus, in order to control what they find and intimidate people who want to talk to them: “While on Loyola University Chicago property or upon entering residence halls and other University facilities, news media representatives must be accompanied by a UMC staff member or a University employee designated by UMC.”

But the policy also says that “’news media’ refers to newspapers (including the Loyola Phoenix), magazines, newsletters, online publications, and broadcast outlets such as radio, television, and podcasts.” So this means, literally, that Loyola student reporters must be accompanied by minders from the administration anywhere on campus they go to report a story. In fact, the way this policy is written, administrators aren’t even allowed to exercise any discretion; they “must” assign a minder to every journalist working on campus. (Perhaps the student newspaper should start assigning a dozen reporters to stories at the same time and demand minders for each one until this crazy policy is ended.)

And if the student journalists refuse to obey? According to Loyola’s speech code, “The University reserves the right to investigate and adjudicate any case in which a student is alleged to violate any policy published by the University …” So a student journalist can be punished for refusing to help the administration put them under surveillance.

Loyola may come to its senses and exempt the Phoenix from these draconian policies. But you don’t fix a bad policy by exempting one newspaper from the rules.

Some might think that universities have restrictive media policies because of experiences with negative and unfair media coverage. But Loyola in the past year had the most positive media coverage of any college in the country, thanks to a Cinderella Final Four run in the men’s basketball tournament and the blessings of Sister Jean, a nun with her own bobblehead who was the most tweeted-about person at the most profitable event in higher education. If repressive media policies can happen at Loyola, they can happen anywhere.

As the Loyola Phoenix noted, “Loyola is more than a brand. It’s a university.” Universities have an obligation to transparency and openness as a part of being free institutions. Brand management is always going to be a part of the modern university. But when branding is enforced by restrictive policies, it indicates that free expression isn’t part of that university’s identity anymore. Universities with repressive media policies are declaring that freedom is no longer part of their brand.