For the majority of my college experience, the center of my Penn world has been on 40th and Walnut streets, within the walls of the “red room” at The Daily Pennsylvanian. I’ve learned to love Papa John’s, dark circles, lumpy bean bags, and the relief that comes with shutting a laptop at the end of a night. Yet, for over half of my time with the paper, I didn’t write a single article. The Associated Press Style Guide was my north star, and a self-imposed limit on my influence over student journalism. I never lacked opinions — just bylines.
It wasn’t until that fifth semester at Penn that I decided I had something of my own to put on paper.
What finally converted me from the editor’s red pen to the writer’s pencil? During the spring of 2024, our campus was placed under a national microscope. The pro-Palestine encampment — demanding investment transparency and an end to the ongoing atrocities in Gaza — drew unprecedented national attention to our campus, and to the DP.
As student speech came under fire from administrators, donors, and the press alike, one thing became clear: the University wouldn’t be the one to protect this fundamental right. If student voices were to be preserved, it would be students themselves who would make sure of it.
The attacks on student speech that have ensued in the year since serve as a harsh reminder that, as students, our right to free expression is constantly at risk. Many Americans — Penn students included — fundamentally misunderstand their First Amendment rights. We’d like to think that the constitution, clutched desperately in the national psyche, is able to protect us — is there to protect us. And, theoretically, it should. But students are particularly vulnerable to the gaps in our national protection of speech.
While attending an institution like Penn comes with its many, many privileges, protected speech isn’t one of them. As a private institution, the University is not legally bound to uphold students’ freedom of speech — a great irony for a school so instrumental in the nation’s revolution.
This is where the DP comes in.
As cliche as it sounds, it has always been more than just a student newspaper. In my four short years, the DP has been a watch party, debate stage, and group therapy session — often all at once. But, as a previously simmering sense of crisis has now come to a boil, I’ve witnessed the DP fully realize its role: not just as a chronicler of student speech, but as a protector of it as Penn fails to be.
It’s our status as an independent paper that makes this possible. As much as Penn may like to, it’s unable to censor something it doesn’t actually control.
I’m not going to pretend it's been perfect. Ask any person in the office and they’ll rattle off the many things they’d do differently if given a second chance. Someone will always want you to be louder, and someone will always want you to be silent. Everyone has that one mistake in an article that still haunts them, myself included.
But working at a student newspaper is a labor of love. You don’t spend hours upon hours ensuring there isn’t a single error to undermine the impact of a piece if you don’t really, truly believe in the work. It might have taken me four years to realize it, but the reason I’ve stuck with the DP is because I wholeheartedly believe in the mission of student journalism. I believe in the efforts of our reporters, and writers, and editors, and photographers.
I’ve met some of the most brilliant, talented, and kind people during my time at this paper. In truth, it’s these remarkable (D)People, whom I have the privilege of considering friends, that cause me to be so adamant about advocating for student speech.
Now, more than ever, it’s up to students to protect, care, and advocate for one another.
ELEANOR GRAUKE is a College of Arts & Sciences senior studying History, with a concentration in Political History. She served as Deputy Copy Editor on the 140th board of The Daily Pennsylvanian and as a Features Writer for 34th Street Magazine. Her email is elgrauke@sas.upenn.edu.
