Two Northwestern University students are facing criminal charges after they placed a fake front page on the school’s student-run newspaper that charged the university with being “complicit in genocide of Palestinians.”
The students were charged under a little-known Illinois statute that criminalizes inserting an “unauthorized advertisement in a newspaper or periodical.” As a result, the pair face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine each.
On October 25, 2023, two unnamed students placed a mock front page on around 300 copies of the school’s newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. The students created a page of a parody newspaper, called The Northwestern Daily, with a front-page headline reading “Northwestern complicit in genocide of Palestinians.” Additional stories had headlines like “Out of Meal Swipes” and “NU wants to Air-Drop a photo.” The page also featured a mock advertisement for Birthright Israel, a program that…
