The fallout after a student's story

A student at Western Oregon University discovered a security breach on the school's computer system and wrote a story about it for the student newspaper. Although he did not publish any private information about students, he did download the file. It contained private student information including social security numbers. That led to disciplinary action against the student journalist. The student newspaper advisor's contract was not renewed because she failed to tell the student about the university's computer policies. And university police searched the student newspaper's computers without informing the adviser or students who worked at the newspapers. Student press advocates worry about the chilling effect such a search and the disciplinary action may have on student journalists. The university also ordered the student reporter to write a commentary on university policies. Other student journalists worry about the consequences of that? Can a university order up student journalists to write stories? Should they be able to?

What do you think? Was the student journalist out of line? Did the advisor err? Was the university wrong to search the newspaper office?