Yale student says newspaper's censorship of Hamas rape from her column part of wider campus problem

Yale student Ariane De Gennaro's column for the college's independent newspaper, which called out those refusing to condemn Hamas terrorism, was one of two edited last month without her knowledge and updated to remove "unsubstantiated claims of rape" by Hamas. 

She told Fox News Digital in an interview that the situation was contributing to a larger problem on college campuses. 

Her column, originally published on Oct. 13 in the Yale Daily News (YDN), was headlined, "Stop justifying terrorism," and was edited to remove a short line about Hamas raping Israeli civilians during their Oct. 7 attack. The correction has since been retracted.

"Hamas, a terrorist organization, launched a depraved attack, killed hundreds of people (including attendees of a music festival), and committed kidnapping, murder and rape," De Gennaro's original column read. 

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An update, dated Oct. 26, included an editor's note that read, "This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims of rape." On Oct. 31, the column was again updated, "After publication of this column, the News appended an erroneous correction that has since been retracted."

She told Fox News Digital she linked out to sources that included reports of rape, images and details of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, which Hamas members broadcasted to the world.

"I wish that it had been flagged at the moment if it were going to be an issue," she said. "Because then we could have discussed it."

She explained that just the line about rape had been removed without her knowledge, and the updated version read, "committed kidnapping and murder." 

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"I told my editors this, but I think it's problematic because I don't think it was their intention to run cover for terrorism, but the effect, especially when liberal universities have had such a surge of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments, the effect of that essentially, it tries to make what happened look less bad, it defends Hamas," she said. 

Her column was updated and changed nearly two weeks after it was originally published. 

"At that point, much more concrete evidence had come out," she said. "I do think that the editors didn't have bad intentions, I'm assuming that they were receiving some sort of pressure."

"I wish they had reached out to me, because I will say I am usually in constant communication with my editors and when they're going to say that I said something unsubstantiated, I would like to have a discussion about that." 

She said this situation was part of a larger problem on college campuses. 

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"I don't think the YDN is the main problem, it's a symptom of the problem," she said. "The universities have become ‘liberal’ to the point of supporting completely illiberal values, being absolutely hypocritical and ridiculous."

"I don't feel like we can have reasonable conversations about things," she said. "I think that's the largest problem, is that there's such an overwhelming pressure to not only be performative with your activism but also just to believe what people think you should believe."

De Gennaro's column was updated again on Tuesday after the Yale Daily News decided to walk back its original corrections, after an outcry from the public and even YDN alumni.

A new editor's note read, "After publication of this column, the News appended an erroneous correction that has since been retracted. The News regrets the mistake and has issued an editor’s note about it."

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YDN Editor-in-chief Anika Seth issued an update to the original editor's note on Tuesday. 

"During our opinion editing process — which is separate from reported coverage — the News failed to ensure that the columnists’ statements were properly cited and attributed. At the time of the columns’ initial publication, those specific forms of violence during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack were not independently confirmed by the cited source," she wrote, explaining the updated editors note.

Seth said the paper was wrong to publish the correction.

"By the time of the first correction on Oct. 25, there had been widely reported coverage from outlets such as Reuters publicly verifying that Hamas raped and beheaded Israelis," Seth added. 

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De Gennaro also praised the Yale Daily News for admitting it error. 

"I think it was pretty obvious that this correction was a mistake and they admitted it was a mistake and I guess the bar is a little bit low, but I'm glad they did the right thing in the end," she said. 

There have been multiple reports that Hamas terrorists committed rape during their rampage. Israel released footage of one captured attacker who said they were given permission to rape the corpse of a girl, according to The Times of Israel. NBC News reported on "signs of rape" in videos of the attack presented to journalists last week. Military forensic teams in Israel also said they found signs of torture and rape among the victims, according to Reuters.

Another column in the YDN, written by Sahar Tartak, was also edited without her knowledge to remove a sentence about rape, before the newspaper's update. 

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Fox News' Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.