I hardly knew Ms. Abbaraju (who has since graduated); my only encounter with her had been professional. I worked as a reporter for the Princeton Tory, an independent student-run magazine, and she was among the organizers of a Feb. 22 protest by the Princeton Committee on Palestine against the Israel Summer Programs Fair hosted by the Center for Jewish Life, a chaplaincy and hub of Jewish activity on campus.

I covered that event for the Tory and followed up with an email to Ms. Abbaraju to clarify and confirm quotes I had recorded. While she disagreed on some points concerning context, she remained cordial throughout our exchange and never indicated that she felt threatened or wished to terminate our conversation. But two days after the article’s publication, Mr. Wolapaye sent the NCO letter, which was also delivered to campus police and the senior associate dean of undergraduate students. I felt mortified and trapped.

The terms of the NCO were unclear about my future journalistic activities on campus, and Mr. Wolapaye’s advice confused matters further. “You do have a right to write,” he assured me on the phone. “If she is a part of a group and she’s making a statement and you talk about a statement, I think that should be OK. But not necessarily to editorialize her directly or her comments.”

What was unambiguous was that the order prohibited me from doing my due diligence as a reporter—which is all I’d done to provoke it.

[I believe it — Ed]