The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit Friday against the IU Board of Trustees and President Pamela Whitten to challenge campus bans for three plaintiffs after they were arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest April 25 and April 27.
The trespass bans, which IUPD separately issued in accordance with a new policy passed by an ad hoc committee a day before the IU Divestment Coalition began its encampment, means the plaintiffs are not allowed to step foot on IU’s campus. If they enter campus while having the ban, a criminal trespass report could be filed which is a Class A misdemeanor in Indiana and can result in up to one year in jail and/or up to $5,000 in fines if convicted.
ACLU of Indiana hosted an online press conference Friday to address the lawsuit. Chris Daley, executive director of the ACLU Indiana, and Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU Indiana hosted the meeting.
The three plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Bloomington resident Jasper Wirtshafter, IU professor in Germanic Studies Benjamin Robinson and IU graduate student Madeleine Meldrum.
Falk said that IU temporarily paused Meldrum and Robinson’s bans. Most other protesters who started the appeal process have also had their bans temporarily paused.
This means that while they are temporarily allowed on campus, the plaintiffs are still waiting for appeals to be processed, so their temporary allowance can be revoked any time in the next year.
The ACLU of Indiana alleges IU violated plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by instituting these bans.
Falk began the conference by explaining the premise of the suit and its significance. He said that the lawsuit does not challenge the legality of the plaintiffs’ arrests or discuss the force used during the arrest. Instead, the goal of this lawsuit is to reinstate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.
“What this lawsuit does challenge is something that is fundamentally important to all of us,” Falk said. “Which is that the effect of the no trespass order is to ban the plaintiffs and many others from entering Dunn Meadow for at least a year to engage in First Amendment expressive activities.”
The IU Board of Trustees established Dunn Meadow as a public space for First Amendment activities in 1969. Falk said the lawsuit points out that one of the clear rules of First Amendment activities is that the state cannot issue prior restraint, an action that restricts some type of expression before it happens.
“The government cannot say today that you cannot engage in First Amendment activities in the future because of some past behavior,” he said. “That’s exactly what has occurred here.”
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, asks that the court enter an order to find that IU cannot ban the plaintiffs from their First Amendment right to express their voices in Dunn Meadow. It also asks that the plaintiffs be awarded damages for violation of their First Amendment rights.
Falk said the ACLU of Indiana filed the lawsuit this morning and has yet to hear from IU. This morning, IU executive director of media relations Mark Bode said in an email IU does not comment on pending litigation.
Both Meldrum and Robinson were present at the press conference. They said they hope to have their bans from IU’s campus repealed. They also expressed frustrations with the appeal process they had to go through to address their campus bans.
“I immediately engaged in the appeal process, which was frankly a mess,” Meldrum said.
According to an email from Rick Van Kooten, executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, those who received a campus ban can appeal by contacting IUPD administration on their website or by emailing at iupsadmn@iu.edu. When an appeal is submitted, individuals will receive the appeal's outcome within 15 business days. Van Kooten said the trespass bans will be suspended in the appeals process in most cases. However, some protesters who were banned from campus have struggled to contact IU about the appeals process.
She explained that she emailed and called regularly in the last week to try to appeal her ban from campus, however hadn’t gotten a response until this morning when the ACLU suit was filed. She said after the suit was filed she was informed she was allowed to temporarily stay on campus.
Still, her ban has the risk of being reenacted any time.
“Collective action and advocacy have always been really important to me,” she said. “It has been really painful to be excluded from that and have my own university revoke that right, that constitutional right of mine, and prevent me from using my voice for a cause that I believe in.”
Robinson agreed with Meldrum and explained his commitment to joining his community and expressing his own voice alongside it. He said that in doing so he has been a mentor for his students.
“I’m also there to express my own opinion as a fellow citizen, and to mentor what I think is the basic obligations of democracy,” he said. “If it is to be democracy, if we are passive and don’t use our rights, then those rights are not serving the purpose that they were designed to serve.”
Robinson’s ban has also been temporarily paused to allow him to be back on campus.
Falk said the ACLU of Indiana has been in contact with many of the other 54 arrested protesters. He said these three plaintiffs are a representative sample of all 57 arrestees and that it is possible that the lawsuit will expand to more of those that were arrested.
“We expect that any resolution of this case will endure to the benefit of all those 57,” he said.
Falk also explained the ACLU thought it was best to file the case so IU would be alerted to what he said is an “obvious constitutional problem” which it hopes IU will quickly correct.
He said the criminal trespass charges are pending in state court, so the ACLU of Indiana’s suit only reaches to the future effects of the no trespassing bans.
