From White House Press Briefings to Johnson Chapel, Pack the Room

On Sept. 18, President Donald Trump’s administration barred reporters representing CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House grounds. The affected news outlets have sued President Trump to challenge their exclusion. They allege that the ban violates their First Amendment rights as well as the due process clause. Democrats and Fox News anchors alike have openly criticized the restriction, noting that limiting press access based on the content of their reporting sets a dangerous precedent. 

Exclusion from a forum, however, is only one side of the First Amendment crisis we have witnessed across the country in the past few years. On the other side of the coin lies the voluntary disengagement from speech forums, exemplified by student refusal to attend controversial talks on campuses like Amherst College’s. Free speech on college campuses across the country has become a hot-button issue, with Amherst ranking 106 of 261 colleges on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2027 College Free Speech Ranking, which is based on “overall scores from student surveys, campus policies, and speech-related controversies.” These two phenomena, of top-down and bottom-up restrictions on participation in speech forums, are interconnected.

Who Can Access the Room? Why Do We Care?

On Sept. 18, President Trump announced on Truth Social that CNN, Politico, and MS NOW reporters were banned as they “constantly write or report FICTION and LIES.” While an official statement has yet to emerge from the White House, the press passes of several reporters and camera crews have been revoked, and they remain unable to access White House grounds. Should the administration continue to justify the ban as cracking down on the dissemination of “FAKE NEWS,” legal challenges claiming viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment would likely be strong. On the morning of Sept. 21, the members of the White House TV press pool who were not banned — including NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and Fox News — all suspended their live coverage of President Trump in solidarity with the three banned outlets.

This exclusion is not entirely unprecedented. Last year, after the Associated Press (AP) declared that it would still use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America” in its style guide and news coverage, the Trump administration banned AP reporters from the White House. AP then filed suit, alleging that the Trump administration engaged in viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum, abridging freedom of the press. Litigation is ongoing, but a federal judge issued an injunction on the AP ban, reinstating their reporters’ access to the White House. 

It would be easy to suggest that the statements made in White House press briefings aren’t all that consequential for how left-leaning news outlets cover the actions of the Trump administration. In theory, reporters could still cover the administration’s rhetorical inconsistencies or critique policy choices without being in the briefing room. One conservative podcaster, Benny Johnson, declared that “no one is infringing on their ability to do reporting.” 

While the affected news outlets can still report and comment on statements recorded by other outlets, the act of asking questions provides accountability and generates discourse within the briefing room. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, for example, repeatedly questioned former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s claims about inflation rates, tariffs, and foreign policy. Fox News can run a clip of her tussling with Kaitlan Collins under the headline “Karoline Leavitt smacks CNN,” but the clip itself ultimately forces audiences to draw their own conclusions about the statements made by both parties. Banning reporters like Collins from the briefing room removes a key accountability mechanism and site of expression, enhancing the partisanship and bifurcation of our information streams.

I would not be contributing much by extolling the benefits of robust First Amendment rights, including freedom of the press. Instead, I seek to point out a few similarities I have observed between Trump’s approach to the newsroom and the way that the Amherst student body has engaged in political discourse in my own experience.

Students’ Self-Exclusion from the Room

Trump’s assault on press access to forums like the White House press briefing room bears certain similarities to student attitudes on the Amherst campus. In recent memory, student discourse has been particularly roused by events hosted by the student organization Amherst for Israel, such as talks given by former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, and Israeli activist Noa Tishby.

In the weeks preceding and following both talks, community members debated the merits of bringing these speakers to campus through forums like the Opinion section of The Student and informal conversations. Unsurprisingly, in the hours leading up to both Tishby and Oren’s talks, groups of students, faculty, and community members assembled outside Johnson Chapel to protest with “Free Palestine” signs. What was shocking was how few students actually proceeded into the building. By my estimate, only about 20% of the audience at Oren’s event were Amherst students or faculty, and the majority of attendees consisted of members of the broader Amherst community. The total attendance seemed to be only around 80 to 100 people. 

While Tishby’s talk restricted audience Q&A and limited attendance, Oren’s talk at least allowed questions that had not been pre-screened. So, while Oren was able to preach to his choir when asked questions by non-students, he was forced to contend with challenging inquiries from the few students and faculty who did show up. This kind of participation and criticism can only serve to enhance the political project of those who remained outside in protest.

Trump’s news ban certainly operates on a separate level from students refusing to attend a talk at a small liberal arts college. Nonetheless, these trends are connected. Reporters from various outlets should be able to hold the Trump administration accountable, just as students should extend their political action beyond a procedural discussion of the talk’s structure or existence.

It is not unreasonable to think of a White House press briefing or a controversial speaker event as a one-way dissemination of information. But neither is. Instead, these are both forums where audience reaction, participation, questions, and even applause impact how a political narrative is produced. The work, then, lies both bearing witness to what was articulated and how, as well as asking the hard questions.

As students, we should attend talks and events especially when we think we will disagree with the speaker’s worldview or ideology. We should be asking questions to push back and generate discourse and resistance inside the space. Beyond the event itself, the nuances of student discourse collapse when we cannot engage based on a shared understanding of what actually occurred. While I would hope community members engage in these conversations both in structured forums like The Student and more informal conversations, my concern is primarily that we elevate the substance of our engagement. We should be discussing not only the fact that a certain speaker came to campus, but what they said, how they said it, and how they handled questions.

This attitude is the hallmark of the liberal arts education we have (literally) bought into. Close reading a common text is at the core of literally every humanities and social science class taught at Amherst. Why would we attend a class where our main topic of discussion is whether or not the book ought to have been assigned?

Many students have understandably articulated how certain controversial speakers represent not alternative political viewpoints, but ideologies that deny whether a “people should exist,” in the case of Oren. While I respect the motivation undergirding this sentiment, I believe the conclusion is misguided. Material change in a democratic system will necessarily require talking to political opponents, or at least being able to articulate why your standpoint is correct. You only stand to gain from understanding the nuances of your opponent’s argument. 

A grounding in a common source remains at the heart of both the liberal arts education and the broader democratic process. Absent a common speech or statement, our political process begins to resemble a shallow discussion between students who did not do the same assigned reading. In the press briefing room or Johnson Chapel, the act of being an audience member is an opportunity to provide accountability, shape the flow of information, and sharpen a response. Because ultimately, critiquing what was said requires being in the room to hear it.