Former Indiana Daily Student media director Jim Rodenbush is taking Indiana University back to court, refiling a lawsuit on Aug. 4 that says the university violated his First and 14th Amendment rights when it fired him in October 2025.
The case, filed in Monroe County Circuit Court, names the Indiana University Board of Trustees, IU Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold and Media School Dean David Tolchinsky as defendants. Rodenbush is listed as the plaintiff.
This new filing follows Rodenbush’s decision to dismiss the original lawsuit in April because of jurisdictional issues.
At the center of the dispute is Tolchinsky’s decision to fire Rodenbush on Oct. 14, 2025, after Rodenbush refused administrator requests to tell the Indiana Daily Student not to publish any news content in its Oct. 16 Homecoming edition.
In the hours after Rodenbush was dismissed, Tolchinsky eliminated print editions of the IDS altogether. Reingold later reversed that move on Oct. 30, writing that Rodenbush’s firing and the print cutoff were not tied to editorial content and saying Indiana Daily Student editors were authorized to spend finances at their discretion through June 30, 2026.
The lawsuit says Rodenbush was denied due process, which it frames as a 14th Amendment violation. It also argues his First Amendment rights were breached because he was fired after refusing to "censor student work in the campus newspaper."
Tolchinsky’s termination letter said Rodenbush’s inability to meet the university’s goals for the Student Media Plan was "unacceptable." The new complaint says Rodenbush’s job offer and contract required him to make sure the IDS stayed financially and editorially independent.
The filing also says IU removed the Student Media Plan from its website in March 2026 while litigation was ongoing. The Media School site now includes a student media action plan from 2024 instead.
Asked about the alleged missing Student Media Plan webpage, IU spokesperson Mark Bode wrote in an email to the IDS that the university “does not comment on litigation."
That 2024 action plan called for cutting IDS print editions from weekly to special editions, but it also said one goal was preserving "IU's distinct student media brands" and specifically included the IDS’ print products in that effort, along with expanding revenue opportunities for WIUX and IUSTV.
After the firing and the backlash over changes to IDS print, the Media School created a task force to build a "roadmap" for student media. The group issued its findings on May 1 and recommended a shared governance structure for student media, plus an advisory board that would include the dean of the Media School.
"I know that they have that committee, and they've got some steps moving forward, and that's all wonderful," Rodenbush said in a phone interview with the IDS. "But it's one of these cases where here's this thing that happened and it's still unresolved."
Rodenbush also said he began a new job this week at Western Kentucky University, where he is now an associate professor.
Summonses notifying the defendants of the lawsuit were sent on Aug. 6. The defendants have until Aug. 26 or Aug. 29 to respond, depending on whether they received the summons by mail.
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