Krish Dev and Dharma Niles, New York University

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Last March, after a hacker opposed to race-conscious college admissions posted personal information about three million New York University applicants to the school’s website, journalists at NYU’s Washington Square News weren’t sure whether the independent student news outlet should download the hacked information at all – and what they should do with it if they did. The university had initially downplayed the hack and declined to notify most of the victims, who included students, alumni, and rejected applicants dating back decades. But Krish Dev and Dharma Niles felt an obligation to find out and report whether the stolen information was real. Dev developed code to identify particular applicants whose information had been revealed by the hacker. WSN journalists contacted 50 people to confirm the accuracy of their stolen information, but never published their names or those of any other victims of the hack in subsequent reporting on the hack.