To Whom It May Concern:
On August 19, Marquette University issued a policy restricting student and faculty demonstrations that will have deleterious effects on free expression, which is an essential component of university life in a free society. We, the undersigned faculty, condemn the policy in the strongest possible terms and call for its immediate repeal.
The transfer of ideas, including through free and open demonstrations, is essential to a free society. If free expression, assembly, and democratic participation are not safe on the Marquette campus, they are not safe anywhere. While Marquette is a private institution, it should pride itself on imposing at least equivalent standards upon itself as those that the Constitution imposes upon public institutions. We should resolve that free expression is, and always will be, safe at Marquette.
Marquette’s new anti-demonstration policy is an affront to the culture of civic engagement and democratic participation that institutions of higher education should seek to promote. As opposed to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights —which put limits on the government and enumerate citizens’ rights — this document puts limits on community members and enumerates the powers and authority of the university and its police. This is inconsistent with this university’s tradition of promoting free expression. It is ironic that these new restrictions on speech arrive one year after Marquette hosted an annual forum on “Democracy in Troubled Times”, and as we prepare to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of MU’s Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), a program founded as a direct result of student protests. Marquette cannot seriously celebrate the EOP’s success while removing the tools that produced it and which empower students, faculty, and staff in bringing new problems to light in the hope of helping Marquette to flourish.
As this example shows, protest can serve as a mechanism of institutional learning. It has a number of benefits for students, faculty, and the university. A campus culture of activism and participation has been shown to produce a stronger sense of leadership, citizenship, and civic engagement later in life. Prohibiting students from taking spontaneous collective action, by contrast, teaches a dangerous lesson: their grievances must be “cleared” with authorities before they can be fully expressed. Activism can also stimulate learning that assists the functioning of the university itself, especially when it brings to light grievances that would otherwise be unknown, misunderstood, or de-emphasized. A university with a strong commitment to its mission should not purge protests or disruption. Instead, it should embrace them as a learning tool.
As it stands, however, the new policy unfairly regulates and stigmatizes student activist activities relative to other kinds of student activities, which conveys the message to our students that social and political engagement that involves contestation is socially harmful at worst or tolerable at best. Students don’t need permission to gather for other reasons in the quad (e.g. frisbee). Yet this policy not only makes the quad an area where free speech is prohibited, it also carves out a small area where “free speech” can happen only subject to bureaucratic approval and without electronic amplification. In creating burdensome barriers to participate fully as a member of the university community this policy promotes a complacent mode of civil engagement and punishes students who seek to freely assemble to make their demands heard.
Disturbingly, the policy erroneously contrasts peaceful with disruptive protest, when historically the most effective peaceful protests have also been disruptive. In fact, the social science on protests is unambiguous: protests are effective precisely when they are disruptive because those who hold power cannot easily ignore them. By prohibiting demonstrations “in any university building or on university property in ways that disrupt the university’s normal functions,” the policy is blind to the fact that protests that cannot stop normal functions cannot be effective. When Rosa Parks helped to spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusing to sit in the back of a segregated bus, she was disrupting normal functions. The Milwaukee Open Housing Marches did the same. As a community committed to free expression and the promotion of justice, we embrace a vision of the university built on dialogue, even when that dialogue is contentious.
In sum, Marquette’s anti-demonstration policy establishes a blanket ban on speech not officially sanctioned by the university administration. This arbitrary and capricious rule undercuts everything that a university in a free society stands for. It should be repealed immediately. We invite all faculty, students, and staff to join us in making this demand.
List of signers