The New York Times published a story earlier this month featuring a number of illegal immigrant students at the University of California, Merced, and the northern California campus is now in panic-mode after noticing that personal information was included in the story.
The story titled “Creating a Safe Space for California Dreamers,” painted a picture of the rural campus and described in detail the hardships that many of the undocumented students faced on their journey to pursue higher education. The students who are in the country illegally agreed to have their name and picture used in the story, but they didn’t know that their dorm room number would be included.
Patricia Leigh Brown of The New York Times has been criticized for mentioning the name of the building that 22 illegal immigrants reside in and for including the dorm room number of four students. The Merced Sun-Star published a story on Monday that focuses on the campus community’s reaction to the story, with many believing that the inclusion of the room numbers has put the students at risk.
“The students who were interviewed by the New York Times have not lost sight of the essence of the article and what it was intended to do,” associate director of the Calvin E. Bright Success Center, Alejandro Delgadillo told The Daily Caller. “They feel resilient in that regard and are proud that they were able to share their message and that other young people are going to read that story and, beyond the room numbers, will see, ‘Hey, that’s my story. I can do the same.'”
UC Merced provided TheDC with the statement released by Chancellor Dorothy Leland last week.
“The results of the November election created a more ominous context for undocumented students, and the article — produced and published by the New York Times earlier this month — focused almost exclusively on their stories.” Leland said in the statement. “Unfortunately, personal details were also revealed in the story that were not appropriate, particularly in the current political environment.”
The chancellor also mentioned that “safe space” housing has been offered to the students for their protection.
After the piece received backlash from those who believe it was wrong for Brown to include private information, a follow-up piece was written by Liz Spayd, public editor at The New York Times. Spayd said that addresses are not typically included in a story, and Brown told her that she now regrets her decision to include the dorm room numbers in the story.
“In hindsight, understanding that the room numbers seem to have caused distress and concern, I, of course, would not have used them,” Brown said.
UC Merced sent multiple requests to The Times for the private information to be removed from the story, but their requests were denied.