Students, faculty express concern over proposed IU expressive activity policy at press conference

IU staff, faculty and students gathered Friday in Dunn Meadow for a press conference to express concern over the proposed IU expressive activity policy, which could go into effect as early as Aug. 1.  

In 1969, the IU Board of Trustees designated Dunn Meadow as a university assembly ground for demonstration “within the limits of applicable laws and regulations, with or without advance notice.” 

A 1989 policy report, erroneously called the 1969 policy online, recognizes the usage of signs, symbols or structures as a sometimes-necessary means of communication.  

The proposed policy seeks to limit expressive activities to between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. and to ban the usage of overnight structures and camping, along with requiring approval from IU of using structures and signs 10 days in advance. 

Groups represented at the conference included members of the pro-Palestine encampment, Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition and IU staff and faculty. There were a total of eight speakers representative of these various groups.  

The speakers sat at a table under a tent which had the Palestinian flag painted above. Other signs leaned against tables and hung behind the speakers reading, “there are no universities left in Gaza” and “Land back,” along with posters with photos from the arrests that occurred in late April at the pro-Palestine encampment in Dunn Meadow. On the day of the conference, the ongoing encampment reached its 93rd day of occupying the meadow. 

IU professor emeritus at the School of Education Russ Skiba opened the session by recounting the 57 arrests made by Indiana State and IU Police at the Dunn Meadow pro-Palestine encampment in late April and the police use of force during the arrests. He also stated that over time, the encampment has been falsely portrayed as a group of people from outside the IU community.  

“These speakers are not a minority or outside agitators,” Skiba said during his speech.  

Dunn Meadow encampment organizer Bryce Greene also recounted the events of April 25 and 27 and retold his own experience of being targeted by the police. Police body camera and radio recordings have revealed they targeted him for arrest because he was identified as a leader of the encampment. He then went on to explain his concerns with the policy and what it might mean for the future of the encampment’s freedom of expression. 

“The freedom of expressive policy that the university is pushing is again using this pretext of safety to justify the previous brutality and to also justify future brutality,” he said.  

Professor Abdulkader Sinno, who was suspended in December, also expressed his own concerns for the future of the encampment and the IU community’s right to freedom of speech. He criticized the decision to attempt to pass the new policy while many faculty and students are away, which he said limits participation. He said the goal of the policy is not to protect the community, but to shield the administration, which he called “authoritarian,” from dissent. 

Graduate student Michael McCarthy, who spoke on behalf of the IGWC, said in his speech the proposed policy is an attempt by the Board of Trustees to silence organized labor at IU. He also stated that graduate students’ legal rights to organize and to bargain are nearly nonexistent already. He explained that the Graduate Workers’ Coalition has faced many obstacles because IU has not offered it recognition. Nevertheless, he said the coalition has executed two recognition strikes.  

“We have reason to believe that some of the tactics we deployed in our most recent strike, in April of this year, were specifically prohibited by the policy in order to curtail our efforts to organize our workplace,” he said in his speech. “The right to organize a labor union and collectively bargain is a human right. The attempt to limit our ability to picket, hand out leaflets, post flyers or even speak with our coworkers on campus is thus a violation of our human rights. We will not let that violation go quietly.” 

Jessy Tang, an IU administrative staff member and professional in community engagement, also spoke on fellow IU staff members feeling silenced by IU’s policies and how the new proposed policy could further hurt their freedom of speech.  

“I have spoken to dozens of staff members who all feel alone, isolated and fear retaliation if they speak up. The new expressive activities policy adds to an already severe culture of fear on campus,” she said. “This policy creates a new minefield for workers who want to express themselves and advocate but don’t fall in line with IU administration’s hardline positions.” 

Other speakers, including IU doctoral student Naomi Satterfield and IU professor Heather Akou, who was among those arrested in Dunn Meadow in April, said the encampment was peaceful prior to the arrests, specifically mentioning the teach-ins protesters held. They also said protests are an important part of making people’s voices heard, but the proposed policy would inhibit that freedom of expression. 

“The requirement for approval is antithetical to the point of protest,” Satterfield said. “Our administration has made it clear that we have no voice in how we are governed, so protest is how we might be heard. But what are we to do if our needs are not being met, if we are being harmed, and none of our administrative leaders seem to care or to even be willing to meet with us, and they simply do not approve this critical way we can make our voices heard?” 

Speakers repeatedly challenged the legality of the proposed policy. 

“I am not opposed to policies, but they must be consistent with the law. They must be applied equally. This is what the First Amendment requires,” Akou said.  

Speakers also discussed the student survey on the proposed expressive policy sent out to the IU student body by Student Government President Cooper Tinsley in June. IUSG later wrote on Instagram it does not endorse the policy, in part due to student feedback from the survey. An undergraduate representative of the encampment said she doesn’t trust the IU Board of Trustees will listen to the students' feedback.  

“The survey is an excuse to say that they listened,” she said.  

Following the conference, Satterfield said a university community which allows knowledge to be challenged is important. She said the expressive activity policy draft, especially in the wake of the passage of Senate Bill 202 a threat to the IU community’s safety and wellbeing, following an existing trend of shutdowns of avenues for discourse with IU administration. 

SB202, which took effect July 1, requires educational institutions establish policies to deny faculty members from receiving tenure or promotions if they don’t foster free inquiry and expression or fail to provide students material from various standpoints. The bill also requires review of tenured professors every five years based on criteria the boards of trustees establish.  

“I’m worried because this does not make IU a safe place to challenge what is known and it does not make IU a safe place for knowledge acquisition and knowledge growth and building,” Satterfield said. 

Greene said after the press conference he thinks the best expressive activity policy is the one the university already has. He said there had previously been no problems with free expression since he began his undergraduate studies at IU in 2016.  

“What I would like to see is that the university doesn’t interpret their current policy to justify putting snipers on the roof, or having armored vehicles, assault troops, all that stuff. We have no need for that here,” he said. “I would like to see the university commit to not using such militarized levels of police violence unless there is a military-level threat that they need to respond to.” 

Prior to the press conference, IU Faculty and Staff for Israel shared a press release Thursday listing recommendations they had sent in a July 1 letter responding to the Board of Trustees regarding the proposed policy. In the press release, they also responded to the criticisms of the policy from the various groups which hosted the conference.  

The press release began with IU Faculty and Staff for Israel’s two recommendations regarding the proposed policy. The first is that the proposed policy should incorporate and reference the existing IU Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct.  

The group wrote this additional aspect would ensure any expressive activity IU defines as harassment — conduct directed toward someone because of their membership, or perceived membership, in a protected class intended to interfere with their access to education or work or create a hostile environment — is unprotected and punishable, even if comporting with the time, place and manner restrictions already laid out in the proposed policy. 

The group also recommended the board should consider adopting a code which can be applied to all IU employees and visitors. The code would be similar to the language used in the Student Code and would make clear that forms of harassment outlined in the code are impermissible for both employees and IU visitors on campus. 

In the release, IU Faculty and Staff for Israel claims there have been instances of antisemitism toward Jewish students and harassment toward those with pro-Israel views on campus since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, hence the need for these recommendations. 

“Under this policy, everyone will have an equal opportunity to speak freely without fear of intimidation or harassment,” the release stated. 

The press release also argued against the various press conference organizers’ claims, such as that the policy targets the pro-Palestine encampment. The group also argued the policy draft has been managed by the Board of Trustees in its usual course of business, protects academic freedom and is not vague. 

Mark Bode, IU executive director of media relations, declined to comment. He directed the Indiana Daily Student to the Board of Trustees to comment on how, and to what extent, they will incorporate the concerns of IU community members in its decision-making process on Monday. No representative from the Board of Trustees responded to a request for comment. 

The IU Board of Trustees will discuss the new expressive activity policy at 1 p.m. Monday at the Showalter House. 

Editor’s Note: Bryce Greene previously worked as an opinion columnist at the Indiana Daily Student.