ATLANTA RESPONDS TO PROTESTS

It is a story playing out across the nation’s institutions of higher education, a story somewhat reminiscent of anti-war protests at colleges and universities in the 1960s, yet different due to the over half-century of change that has intervened. Police have carried out multiple violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, in what appears to be the first campus crackdown in recent days to involve rubber bullets and teargas after students set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and against Cop City. On Thursday, Emory students set up multiple tents on the campus’s lawns in protest against the university’s ties to Israel, as well Atlanta’s Cop City, a police and fire department training center that is being constructed on a 171-acre plot in a forest south-east of Atlanta. The protesters issued a statement, demanding “total institutional divestment from Israeli apartheid and Cop City at all Atlanta colleges and universities.”  

In a statement released on April 25, 2024, the university said: “Several dozen protesters trespassed into Emory University’s campus early on Thursday morning and set up tents on the Quad. These individuals are not members of our community. They are activists attempting to disrupt our university as our students finish classes and prepare for finals. Emory does not tolerate vandalism or other criminal activity on campus. The Emory police department ordered the group to leave and contacted Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol for assistance.”

FREE SPEECH OR UNLAWFUL OCCUPATION?

Similar scenes unfolded around the country. As the crackdowns continued in the south, Princeton University students in New Jersey set up their own Gaza solidarity encampment on Thursday morning at 7am local time. Two students were arrested and barred from campus. It is unclear when they will be able to return. Elsewhere on the same day, a new protest camp sprang up at the University of California, Los Angeles, with local news reports saying dozens of tents were erected on Thursday morning. Also in Los Angeles, officials at the University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony, citing fears that the protests on campus could disrupt plans. At Indiana University Bloomington, a tent encampment popped up before police with shields and batons shoved into a line of protesters, arresting 33 people.

At the City College of New York, hundreds of students who were gathered on the lawn beneath the Harlem campus’s famed gothic buildings erupted in cheers after a small contingent of police officers retreated from the scene. In one corner of the quad, a “security training” was held among students who said they expected to be arrested in the coming hours.

Late on Thursday Columbia University backed off from an overnight deadline for pro-Palestinian protesters to abandon an encampment there. The office of the New York-based Columbia University president, Minouche Shafik, issued a statement retreating from a midnight deadline to dismantle a large tent camp with around 200 students.

A group of Democratic state legislators and the ACLU expressed concern over the reaction by law enforcement to the student protests. The ACLU said: “The freedom to protest without retribution is essential to our democracy. Atlanta has historically been a place where citizens could freely exercise their rights to protest, but we have unfortunately seen a series of unconstitutional crackdowns on speech and protest across Georgia in recent years,” the organization said in a statement. “Colleges and universities should be places where viewpoints, expression, debate, and free speech are encouraged, not suppressed.”

In response, Georgia's attorney general, Chris Carr, weighed in on the pro-Palestinian protests and encampments at Georgia universities like Emory: "We will proudly stand by any university that takes action to protect the health and safety of Georgia’s students," Carr said on social media. "Nobody has the legal right to shut down our schools by camping out and making antisemitic threats.”

THE LEGAL QUESTION

Distinguishing between free speech and assembly—rights guaranteed in the First Amendment—and unlawful encampments, hate speech and riots has always been difficult. Protecting free expression on college campuses is essential to helping students succeed. Students should be allowed to speak and be heard in public areas of school grounds, such as sidewalks and lawns. Expression should not be cordoned off to so-called free-speech zones. As the University of Chicago’s Committee on Free Expression wrote in a statement adopted by more than 100 colleges and universities, it is not a school’s job to protect individuals from ideas with which they disagree.

In a recent interview, Daniel Diermeier, Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, was asked where he draws the line between free speech and illegal actions. A group of Vanderbilt students recently “ran over” a security guard, Diermeier said, on their way to occupying an administrative building and refusing to leave. The students sent the guard to the hospital, and his injuries kept him out of work for two weeks. One student broke a window in the building. Diermeier was direct: Causing injury and damaging property are not protected forms of speech. When it comes to protests, Diermeier said, “universities will determine the time, manner, and way in which it’s done.”

While institutions of higher education are essential to the free expression and exploration of controversial ideas and opinions, no one on a campus should be allowed to shout down another individual at a school program, preventing them from delivering a lecture or teaching a class. Neither should individuals be automatically absolved from committing physical assaults or damaging property. College officials must maintain order inside school buildings and on any part of campus where individuals are breaking school codes or violating the law. The recent outbreak of “encampments” on campuses is not an attempt to persuade people with ideas, nor mere efforts to express opinions.

As the VP of Campus Life at Princeton University stated on April 24: In addition to disrupting University operations, some types of protest actions (including occupying or blocking access to buildings, establishing outdoor encampments and sleeping in any campus outdoor space) are inherently unsafe for both those involved and for bystanders, and they increase the potential for escalation and confrontation. They are also inconsistent with the University’s mission and its legal obligation to provide a safe environment for all students and employees. For those reasons, among others, our policies explicitly prohibit such conduct, and I want to be sure you understand that we will act promptly in order to address it. Any individual involved in an encampment, occupation, or other unlawful disruptive conduct who refuses to stop after a warning will be arrested and immediately barred from campus. For students, such exclusion from campus would jeopardize their ability to complete the semester. In addition, members of our community would face a disciplinary process…” 

With commencements fast approaching, the ability of universities and colleges to foster free expression while maintaining law and order will be tested. Thoughtful approaches like those outlined above will go far to teach students how to navigate the line between protected free speech and unlawful protest.  

CONTACT YOUR ATTORNEY

If you have been injured at a protest, contact Dave Thomas at The Thomas Law Firm for a free evaluation of your legal rights.