The Harvard and Columbia journals trampled free expression in a rush to suppress a human-rights lawyer’s writing on Israel

On a normal day, the Columbia Law Review’s website is not a feast for the eyes. What it lacks in visual appeal, it makes up for with a panoply of articles and student notes addressing a range of legal issues. But for much of last week, the website displayed just a single line: “Website is under maintenance.”

One would be forgiven for envisioning a shiny new website on the horizon. But these four words were a lie. There was no maintenance.

Erika Lopez is a recent graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an editor and DEI chair of the Columbia Law Review

Tascha Shahriari-Parsa is a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor and online chair of the Harvard Law Review

The Wall Street Journal correspondent is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately from his Russian jail

Evan Gershkovich , a Wall Street Journal reporter, has spent nearly a year in a Moscow prison, awaiting trial for a crime he did not commit. Mr Gershkovich was arrested last March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and jailed on espionage charges. He is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately. Hostage diplomacy lies behind his incarceration. As the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy , said, Mr Gershkovich’s case “is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”.

Vladimir Putin indicated in February that a prisoner exchange could lead to the release of Mr Gershkovich. There have been high-profile prisoner swaps in the past. In December 2022, Moscow traded a US basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for a Russian arms trafficker. But a journalist’s detention to secure the release of a Russian hitman would underscore Russia’s retreat into a Soviet past. In 1986 an American journalist, Nicholas Daniloff , was arrested and charged with espionage. He was let go after two weeks when the US released a Soviet diplomat accused of spying. Mr Gershkovich has been inside for nearly 12 months.