Brown University opts not to punish student journalist who launched mini-DOGE of its administrators

Brown University cleared student journalist Alex Shieh of the last remaining charges stemming from Shieh's Department of Government Efficiency-like review of Brown administrators for the relaunch of the Brown Spectator, a conservative-libertarian student newspaper, a week after his "administrative review meeting" with a campus official.

The administration variously accused Shieh of causing emotional distress to named employees in the Bloat@Brown database, improperly accessing a university database to create it, "misrepresentation" for calling himself a reporter for the Spectator and, finally, trademark infringement for putting "Brown" in the newspaper's name.

But the Ivy League school's actions drew wider attention to the Bloat@Brown database and scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee and Endowment Tax Fairness Act sponsor Texas GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, just as President Trump was threatening Harvard's tax-exempt status. 

DOGE cheerleader Elon Musk also gave the controversy a massive megaphone, while Shieh released an attack ad against Brown with his own money.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which was helping Shieh, showed Just the News the clearance letter he received from Associate Dean Kirsten Wolfe Wednesday.

"Based on a review of the information related to the circumstances of your behavior, including your own statements, the Administrative Reviewer has determined that you are not responsible for a violation of Section 3.4.24 of the Code of Student Conduct," Wolfe wrote. "Thus, no discipline will be imposed."

Brown's only remaining charges were violating its information technology policy in the database's creation and trademark infringement over the newspaper's name, which it applied to the newspaper's three-member board that includes Shieh but has never tried to enforce against the much older Brown Daily Herald, which is also independent.

"Everyone [on the board] was cleared," Shieh told Just the News, while FIRE said its "current understanding" was the Spectator has permission to use the name "for the first issue of the newspaper, but we don't know anything yet about the charge at large."

"The charges against me were pure retaliation, and so flimsy not even their own reviewers could find me guilty," Shieh said in FIRE's press release. "This ruling is a win for free speech at Brown, but this fight should never have been started."

FIRE Program Officer Dominic Coletti said Brown "eventually reached the correct conclusion in this case, [but] the process by which it investigated Shieh was wholly unacceptable," including pressuring him to incriminate himself and demanding he keep the investigation secret.

Brown spokesperson Brian Clark told WPRI this was never a "free speech issue" and the university has “proceeded in complete accordance with free expression guarantees and appropriate procedural safeguards under University policies and applicable law" throughout the investigation.