‘I Don’t Think We Should Be Afraid of Protests’: Marquette Faculty Members Speak Out Against Policy Requiring Approval for Demonstrations

Marquette University recently adopted a policy on campus demonstrations that faculty members and free-speech advocates say creates a dangerous chilling effect.

Since the policy was announced this month, graduate students and the faculty have taken issue with the restrictions it imposes on free speech — and the way Marquette, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, has adopted the measure. More than 100 faculty members signed an open letter, delivered to Marquette administrators on Tuesday, that called the policy “arbitrary and capricious.”

As critics of the academy warn of a “free-speech crisis,” the new Marquette policy is one example of free expression in the cross hairs — being challenged not by liberal student activists but by university administrators. Adding to the alarm at Marquette is the sense from the faculty that the new policy is a direct response to protests in support of instructor unionization.

The policy requires that all demonstrations not held in Marquette’s student union or the adjacent green space be approved through a permitting procedure. Students must seek approval from the dean’s office, while faculty and staff members will need to request permission from the provost’s office and the vice president for human resources, respectively.

“I don’t really know what this message sends our students, or our faculty and staff, that we can’t have hard conversations,” said Sameena Mulla, an associate professor of social and cultural sciences at Marquette who signed the open letter. “We’re a university. I don’t think we should be afraid of protests or dissent or difficult conversations.”

Information on the policy was included in the August 19 issue of a weekly campuswide newsletter, among news items about a scholarship donation, a campus ban on electric scooters, and parking procedures for move-in day.

In other words, it was the sort of dispatch people might have overlooked, Mulla said.

“The inbox is so full, and you tend not to notice all of the links in there,” Mulla said. “And then someone says, ‘Have you read what that new demonstration policy is?’”

That was the case for Mulla, who learned of the policy from another faculty member. A board member of Milwaukee’s ACLU chapter, Mulla was troubled by how the policy distinguishes between “peaceful” and “disruptive” protests — the former, it says, are allowed, while the latter are “strictly prohibited.” The four-page policy provides a list of characteristics defining a “disruptive” protest, but Mulla said it’s unclear how the distinction would be arbitrated.

The policy was approved by Marquette’s four-member policy-review committee, which includes the university’s chief of staff to the provost, assistant vice president for human resources, assistant general counsel, and senior associate vice president for finance. The group focuses on operational efficiency, faculty members said.

Three of the committee members did not respond to emailed requests for comment, while the fourth referred The Chronicle to the university’s communications office.

“Marquette has had a demonstration policy in place for students for decades. Extending the policy to include the entire Marquette community allows for consistent standards and procedures while upholding the safety, security, and well-being of our campus community and visitors to campus,” the university said in a statement. “Marquette University’s demonstration policy in no way limits what demonstrators say; it merely puts reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of demonstration speech.”

Jodi Melamed, an associate professor of English and Africana studies, and a signer of the letter, said the demonstration policy fell outside of that committee’s purview.

“Clearly, free expression at a university is not merely a matter of operational efficiency,” Melamed said. The fact that the policy “was put together over the summer by this policy-review committee that has no faculty or student representation, I find is really wrong.

“It’s undermining a core purpose of higher education and deeply infringing on faculty, staff, and students’ freedoms in the name of operational inefficiency,” Melamed continued. “I see this as really being about intimidation, censorship, and narrowing the real purpose of the university, which is free expression.”

Tom Hansberger, a member of an organizing group and a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, said language in the new policy directly reflected comments made when pro-union faculty and staff members occupied Marquette’s administration building, Zilber Hall, for three weeks in May.

The pro-union group began the sit-in there, said Hansberger and Sue Giaimo, a fellow organizer, after unproductive attempts to meet with university administrators, including the acting provost, Kimo Ah Yun.

During the sit-in, Ah Yun told occupiers that they could not block building entrances and exits and would need to obtain permission to stage future demonstrations. Both clauses are included in the demonstration policy introduced this month, and Hansberger said the new policy “sure looks like” it stemmed from the unionization advocates’ occupation.

Laura Beltz, senior program officer in policy reform at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy group for campus free speech, said the demonstration policy was a regressive measure for Marquette, which already holds her organization’s worst rating for free speech.

“If you’re trying to get out and demonstrate about something that has just happened in the news, you’re probably going to be discouraged by the fact that you … have to go through this process in advance before you can go out on the quad and speak your mind,” Beltz said.

The policy, and its predecessor, also says that demonstrators “should expect university personnel (typically, MUPD officers) to be present for all or part” of their events. The policy states that this presence is not intended to deter demonstration but “is often necessary to ensure organizers’ own rights are protected and the university’s regular operations and activities are not interrupted. Accordingly, university representatives may film, photograph, or record” demonstrations.

“If you’re a student, and you hear that you need to organize all this in advance, and then the police officers might be filming you the whole time,” Beltz said, “that’s bound to be intimidating.”

Megan Zahneis is a reporting fellow for The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter at @meganzahneis, or email her at megan.zahneis@chronicle.com.