BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — Purdue University’s independent student newspaper, Purdue Exponent, stocked Indiana University’s Indiana Daily Student (IDS) newsstands in Bloomington over the weekend as a show of solidarity.

This comes after Jim Rodenbush, the IDS director of student media, was fired by IU for not following a school directive to stop publishing news content. After Rodenbush was fired, the school cut the printed paper completely.

Kyle Charters, the Purdue Exponent’s publisher, posted the following message on his X account Friday:

“The @purdueexponent’s “Operation Clandestine Delivery” was a success! We delivered special edition Exponents to the IU campus after the University admin there canceled @IDSnews print editions. Student journalism solidarity.👊”

Kyle Charters, publisher for the Purdue Exponent.

Charters called the latest print edition of the Purdue Exponent a special “solidarity” edition that offers readers a chance to donate to the Purdue Exponent and IDS. 3,000 “solidarity” editions were delivered to about 30 IDS newsstands on the IU Bloomington campus, plus dispensers along Kirkwood Avenue.

Charters provided News 8 with the following statement Sunday:

“Having endured our own distribution battles with Purdue over the summer, the Exponent newsroom felt a strong desire to come to the aid of the IDS, given that the IU administration so abruptly canceled print editions. Journalism, and student media specifically, feels under attack by the same institutions that also claim to fully support freedom of speech. We wanted to bring attention to a critical tenet of a healthy democracy. While our two schools have had a long, long rivalry, there are important fundamentals that unite us.”

Kyle Charters, publisher for the Purdue Exponent.