In an interview, Mr. Boyle, 21, the student photographer who deleted photographs he had posted, said that while he supported the First Amendment, he did not intend to cause trauma to the people he photographed.

“There was definitely a lot of panic,” Mr. Boyle, a senior majoring in journalism who grew up in Chicago, said of his reaction to being criticized. “There was me being worried that I’m hurting people with my coverage.”

Troy Closson, the editor in chief of The Daily Northwestern, wrote on Twitter that he felt added pressure as only the third African-American student to hold the top position at the paper in its more than 135-year history . “Being in this role and balancing our coverage and the role of this paper on campus with my racial identity — and knowing how our paper has historically failed students of color, and particularly black students, has been incredibly challenging to navigate,” he wrote.

Mr. Whitaker, the Medill dean, defended The Daily, but criticized the paper’s decision to apologize .

“I have also offered that it is naïve, not to mention wrongheaded, to declare, as many of our student activists have, that The Daily staff and other student journalists had somehow violated the personal space of the protesters by reporting on the proceedings, which were conducted in the open and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention,” he said.

In a coffee shop in Evanston on Tuesday, Ms. Dai, 23, the student who had questioned Mr. Boyle’s photograph of her, said that she and other activists were trying to challenge journalistic norms and push for a more sensitive approach to reporting that considers the vulnerability of the people whose lives are portrayed.

“We weren’t there to get in the newspaper,” she said of the protest at the Sessions event. “We weren’t there to get national attention. People still hold dear that their journalistic duty is the most important thing, and that’s not the case.”

Campus activists and student journalists have long wrestled with tensions. In 1990, students burned copies of The University Daily Kansan after an editor changed the publication’s style for referring to African-American students from “Black” to “black.” At the time, the change brought the newspaper in line with the style of The Associated Press, but it was seen as offensive by some on campus.