A few months ago, a group of students at Northwestern University placed parody flyers with obviously fake Daily Northwestern front pages on stacks of student newspapers on campus. They didn’t remove or damage any newspapers – anyone who wanted to read one could just throw away the flyers protesting the university’s response to the Israel-Gaza war.

Still, prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois—which includes Chicago and Evanston, Northwestern’s (and my) hometown—trawled the law books to charge the students under a rarely used law that criminalizes “theft of advertising services.” The Daily’s editor later urged prosecutors to relent, but only after a fierce backlash from the national press and even the Daily’s editors for involving police in the response to harmless civil disobedience on a college campus.

That’s why it was surprising to read in the Chicago Reader newsletter that, in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention, the City of Chicago had ordered a supplier to remove at least 83 newspaper racks from downtown Chicago without notifying the Reader or, presumably, other affected news organizations.

What happened to the newspapers in these stands is known neither to the readers nor to the advertisers who placed ads there.

So what happened to “theft of advertising services”? True, the law under which the Northwestern students were charged only criminalizes the unauthorized insertion of newspapers. Pulling newspapers outright may not technically violate the law. But it’s safe to assume that no one in the state attorney’s office was working late last night to find another way to defend the rights of the Reader and its advertisers.

It seems that there is a double standard here. When activists simply cover up newspaper ads with a flyer to spread their message, it is so serious that prosecutors are forced to find a reason to prosecute them.

However, if the city government decides that newspaper boxes are an eyesore, it can not only cover them up but remove them along with the newspapers they contain, including advertisements and everything else.

Speaking of which, why do city officials seem to find the presence of newspaper racks offensive in the first place? Do they honestly believe that visitors coming to town for the DNC – presumably people interested in public affairs and reading news – will think less of the city if they have newspapers in public display? Does a single Chicagoan want their tax dollars spent on something like this?

Newspaper racks are obviously not as common as they once were, and the city has already removed newspaper racks that it deemed abandoned under its municipal code. However, alternative newspapers still use newspaper racks, and according to the Reader, the ones the city removed before the meeting were anything but abandoned.

The dissemination of news – whether through newspaper boxes or otherwise – is constitutionally protected. Nearly 40 years ago, a federal judge in Chicago struck down an ordinance that gave a suburban mayor unfettered discretion over the placement of newspaper boxes, calling it unconstitutional pre-censorship. That ruling came shortly after the Supreme Court upheld an appeals ruling that a similar ordinance in Lakewood, Ohio, violated the First Amendment.

The Reader has promised to investigate the removal of the newspaper racks. “In good Chicago tradition, we can begin exposing,” the newsletter says. If the reporters’ findings show that the city violated the First Amendment, it will hopefully be held accountable in court.

Regardless, the city will be judged harshly in the court of public opinion. Chicago’s press is by no means immune to the challenges facing virtually all media today – the city’s two largest daily newspapers have faced bankruptcy. But the city is also rightly called a “center of innovation” for local news, where small and unconventional news organizations, including the Reader, collaborate to produce award-winning investigative journalism.

This is something to be proud of and not something to hide from outsiders. The fact that the city apparently thinks differently is what is truly criminal.