“The bottom line is that he was not one of the protesters,” said Andrew Bridges, a retired partner at law firm Fenwick & West and president of the Friends of the Stanford Daily Foundation. “He was not there to facilitate or assist the protesters. He was there to report on the protest and on the occupation.”
Stanford University did not respond to a request for comment.
Gohill was arrested along with a dozen others on June 5 after a group of students and activists occupied the president’s office with the intention of barricading themselves inside the building. Gohill, who was donning both a red Stanford Daily hoodie and his student press credentials, had followed the demonstrators into the building shortly before police officers arrived.
Despite telling law enforcement multiple times that he had not participated in the break-in or in the protest and that he was there in his capacity as a reporter, Gohill was arrested and taken into custody before being released on $20,000 bail.
In a statement issued by the university on June 10, it said it had lifted an interim suspension and indefinite campus ban against Gohill after finding that he did not present “an immediate threat to the health and safety of campus.” The statement did, however, accuse Gohill of “knowingly [coming] along for planned criminal activity” and said university officials “fully support having him be criminally prosecuted.”
Bridges, who led the drafting of the letter, said he was disturbed by the statement and found that it purposefully maligned Gohill and the Stanford Daily.
According to Bridges, Gohill did nothing to warrant the three suspected charges that were first presented to him on the day of his arrest. He said Gohill had not entered the building with the intent to commit any crime and had not engaged in destruction of property.
As it stands, he said there’s no reason to believe that Gohill’s case should still be open.
But according to the letter, Stanford Provost Jenny Martinez told the Faculty Senate during a Nov. 21 meeting that “criminal prosecution is still possible,” a threat that continues to cause Gohill undue anxiety.
“For a university renowned for turning out some of the brightest minds, Stanford leadership’s calls for the criminal prosecution of a young journalist covering a protest is decidedly dimwitted,” said Maxwell Szabo, an attorney and spokesperson for Gohill.
Peter Bhatia, CEO of the journalism startup Houston Landing and another of the letter’s signatories, said the university’s treatment of Gohill as a criminal and its refusal to recognize his role as a journalist with First Amendment rights has the potential to set a bad precedent for both student reporters and other journalists seeking to keep the community informed.
“Some of the best journalism in the United States right now is student journalism,” Bridges said. “They have a critically important role within the sort of communities and ecosystems that exist at universities and colleges.”
Gohill “was there as a reporter,” Bridges added. “Why this has never been accorded respect by the university is incredibly puzzling, and I think reflects some dereliction of duty by the university.”
