Purdue University’s longstanding independent student newspaper, The Purdue Exponent, will no longer employ international students.
The Exponent and the university came to similar conclusions earlier this month, said Kyle Charters, the Exponent’s publisher.
“We presume, I guess, that it was an unintended consequence of Purdue’s decision over the summer, and one that we feel is honestly pretty unfortunate,” he said.
The Exponent, which pays students for their work, lost vendor status when Purdue took actions to distance itself from the publication this summer.
These included not renewing a decades-long vendor contract, revoking student journalists’ parking passes, and ending university assistance with newspaper distribution on campus. The university also asked the publication to remove the word “Purdue” from its website.
“We are not hiring international students in the interest of their safety and to avoid jeopardizing their legal status in the United States – not because we don’t want them,” said Editor in Chief Olivia Mapes in an editorialThursday.
Purdue did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Due to federal laws, international students on F-1 visas are not able to work for organizations outside a university, except under specific circumstances.
As a result of this development, The Exponent parted ways with four international student journalists on staff and told about 8-10 prospective staffers that they would not be able to join.
Charters said the publication’s total staff fluctuates between 40-140 student journalists semester-to-semester. The Exponent covers a campus of nearly 60,000 students — where nearly 10,000 are international students.
“It’s tragic, and there’s a loss,” Mapes wrote. “Having people from different backgrounds has made this place special. Without our international students we have lost a different perspective and way of seeing the world. Our coverage won’t be the same without them.”
Charters said the Exponent is conferring with attorneys to see if any pathways exist for students with F-1 visas.
“Unless something changes,” he said, “we’re just simply not going to be able to employ international students unless there’s a very narrow path … if they were in a major in which the curriculum fit to what we do at the Exponent.”
Purdue University does not have a journalism program.
Contact WFYI reporter Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org.