On January 31st, 2025, the University of Chicago’s Organization of Black Students (OBS) and African and Caribbean Students Association (ACSA) released a joint statement strongly criticizing the Chicago Maroon and detailing their decision to terminate their collaboration with the newspaper to create a 2025 Black History Month Issue. Contrary to the Maroon’s initial reporting that the conflict was due to “disagreements over journalistic norms,” OBS and ACSA describe a more severe dispute.
In their statement, OBS and ACSA accuse the Maroon of “harmful reporting practices and breaches of ethical standards” concerning their reporting of the December 11th arrest of UChicago student and pro-Palestinian protester Mamayan Jabateh, who was charged with two felonies of “aggravated battery of a peace officer” and “causing an injury while resisting or obstructing a peace officer.” As reported by the Maroon, Jabateh “allegedly struck a CPD officer’s face and body while attempting to prevent the arrest” of another UChicago student and then struck the officer again “about the body when she was attempting to place the Offender in custody.” The Maroon captioned photos they took during the incident as corroborating this timeline of events, detailing: “Photographs captured by the Maroon during the protest show the student grabbing an officer’s hand and pushing an officer in the face.”
OBS and ACSA criticize this coverage by the Maroon as “[echoing] law enforcement rhetoric in a manner that dehumanized them while reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Black students on our campus” and having “an apparent bias against protest movements and Black students.” They state that “Failing to acknowledge potential inaccuracies or contextual gaps further entrenches a single narrative, limiting readers’ ability to engage critically and fairly with the subject unless they have a second source.” They also detail: “Additionally, The Maroon’s decision to publish unnecessary sensitive information about Mamayan against their will, constitutes a clear violation of ethical guidelines regarding privacy, exposing them to potential harm and unwarranted backlash.”
The joint statement additionally states that the Maroon’s refusal to censor certain comments with “racist and anti-Black rhetoric” on their articles further displays the Maroon’s “lack of accountability,” as according to OBS and ACSA, “allowing such discourse to persist without intervention further marginalizes the very communities the publication claims to inform and represent.”
OBS and ACSA claim that these concerns were brought up to the Maroon in an over one-hour meeting, but “the publication has refused to take accountability for its coverage of the arrests, which further endangered Mamayan.” This led OBS and ACSA to terminate their Black History Month Issue with the Maroon, as they reasoned: “Our engagement with The Maroon for one month out of the year does not outweigh our commitment to the protection, safety, and well-being of any single member of our Black community.”
The joint statement then announced that OBS and ACSA’s own Black History Month Issue will be published independently of the Maroon, and they concluded by asking UChicago students to also consider boycotting the Maroon, stating: “We encourage UChicago students to look forward to our BHM issue, celebrating the creativity of Black students on campus, and to reconsider their engagement with The Maroon in favor of more accountable and inclusive campus publications.”