It’s getting colder at Trinity — but I’m not talking about the weather. For the last few months, I’ve been doing some investigative reporting on campus, and there’s a phrase that keeps cropping up in my interviews: “Everyone’s scared.”
They’re scared to speak out. They’re afraid that speaking out will cost them their jobs. Faculty won’t talk to us without anonymity. Residential assistants barely talk to us at all. Simply stated, the people who work for the university are scared.
They’re scared of outside forces they believe are steering this ship, and of internal forces they believe are actively sinking it. One way or another, there’s a storm brewing. Or a lawsuit cooking.
Trinity administration, intentionally or not, has unleashed a chilling effect on campus. The “chilling effect” occurs when individuals self-censor because they’re afraid of losing their job, their housing, their pay or their social life. Almost anyone on the Trinitonian’s staff can tell you that this campus has indeed been “chilled,” and everywhere, people don’t talk to reporters like they used to.
Back in the early years (like the 00’s), people talked to the Trinitonian. Our papers were funnier, brazen and constantly over 20 pages. Now we struggle to get sources. Professors won’t talk about themselves on the record. We don’t have regular faculty contributors like we used to — fun fact, some of them are still here — and now we’re begging to attach a professor’s name to their quote.
RAs, meanwhile, operate as if they’re under a gag order. They’ve told our reporters that if they comment on the record, they could lose their housing. But here’s something you may not know: repercussions for speaking to the press are not completely legal.
Under federal labor law, employees do not lose the right to talk about their jobs just because their employers prefer they stay quiet. The National Labor Relations Act protects what is known as “protected concerted activity,” which includes employees discussing their working conditions, such as pay or treatment, especially when those conversations reflect shared concerns or could lead to collective action. The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly found that workplace rules discouraging employees from speaking to the media can be unlawful when a reasonable employee would interpret those rules as limiting their ability to talk about those conditions.
That protection is not absolute. It does not apply equally to everyone, and it does not cover speech meant to actively harm an employer’s operations. But speaking openly about workplace conditions, even when it is critical or uncomfortable, is not misconduct. It is exactly the kind of activity federal labor law is meant to protect.
The Trinitonian is 124 years old. As the last year has hopefully taught us, we’re only getting stronger. We get thousands of people who read our work online, engage with our content on social media and pick up our paper every week.
We’re also not naive, and we know that our federal protections are more easily asserted than they are applied. To that effect, we’ve created a new tip form, so members of our community can tell us their stories directly and quickly. You can find it every week in the box right next to this editorial.
The only people who can view your submissions to our form are Samara Gerstle, Trinitonian editor-in-chief, and me. We will never make your name publicly available without your consent. We can’t promise your complete anonymity — and if any journalist ever promises you that, they’re lying. However, we can tell you that this form is privately administered and we take every precaution to ensure its security.
That said, we ask that you give us your name and a way to contact you. Anonymous tips are hard to verify and easy to dismiss, and it makes our reporting so much smoother if we can talk to the initial complainant.
If you really want to keep your anonymity, even from us, use a fake name and email address; we certainly can’t stop you. But I urge you not to. And I know that requires some trust on your part. But we’re hoping you have enough faith in your friendly neighborhood newspaper to protect both you and your information.
And a final message: If people are too afraid to speak, even privately, then the problem isn’t the reporting. It’s what, or who, they’re afraid of.
