Russ Skiba, professor emeritus in the School of Education, speaks at a candlelight vigil on Sept. 2.
(Clayton Baumgarth, WTIU)
Fourteen protesters have been reported to Indiana University after violating a new expressive activity policy.
The protesters — 13 faculty and one student — attended candlelight vigils for free speech after the IU’s 11 p.m. cutoff for expressive activity. The protesters have gathered at IU’s Sample Gates at night to defy the policy since the semester began. They plan to continue.
IU’s Board of Trustees decided on a new expressive activity policy in July. The policy bans camping, displaying unapproved signs and symbols, protesting within 25 feet of entrances, and activity on campus between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Russ Skiba, professor emeritus in the School of Education, was reported to the university after speaking at the protests. Skiba said protesters are reprimanded and told there could be more severe consequences if they violate the policy again. According to the policy, sanctions include but aren’t limited to citations and interim suspension from campus.
“The fact that they're issuing a threat with just accepting what the administration hasn't even defined, it says to me that the primary purpose is to instill fear in these demonstrators,” Skiba said. “It's shocking that Indiana University is stooping to that kind of level in terms of trying to suppress free speech.”
When asked for information or an interview on recent policy violations, an IU spokesperson provided a statement over email.
“We don’t comment on individual conduct cases,” the spokesperson said. “The university has communicated the new expressive activity policy with members of the IU community repeatedly before and since it went into effect Aug. 1 and the policy remains in full effect.”
Some protesters were reported after speaking out at the vigils, and others announced on social media they planned to attend the protests.
Skiba said one protester was reported after reading a line from the 1969 landmark free speech case Tinker vs. Des Moines.Judge Abe Fortas said students and teachers don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Michael McCarthy, financial officer of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition, said the union supports the vigils and those reported, because free speech is a labor issue. Greene is a member of the IGWC-UE.
“We are supporting those who have been given charges by making sure that these vigils stay in the news, and they stay relevant, and that these people don't go forgotten,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said the new expressive policy makes it impossible to picket their workplaces and labor groups are being pushed off campus. Unlike students at private universities, the IGWC doesn’t have protections under the National Labor Relations Act. The union has relied on free speech protections in the past, but this new policy changed how and where they can picket.
McCarthy said the vigils will continue and grow because freedom of speech is fundamental.
“In terms of how the administration should see it, I think that they should see that people will not give up on their freedom of speech,” McCarthy said. “This is a right that is just in people's bones, they feel it so deeply.”
IU’s new expressive activity policy comes after antiwar protesters camped in Dunn Meadow for 100 days.The Indiana State Police arrested 57 of the protesters last spring. They were part of a national pro-Palestine movement on college campuses, calling for universities to divest from relationships with Israel. At IU, the protesters also demanded the resignation of President Pamela Whitten, Provost Rahul Shrivastav and Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Carrie Docherty.
All of this started with pro-Palestine organizing on campus, McCarthy said.
“We really need to reconsider what our values are as a community,” McCarthy said. “We need to take this administration on if they're not going to fight for those values the same way that the rest of the community is willing to fight for them.”
Skiba also sees the parallel between the vigils and the encampment protests. Just like last spring, he said the harder IU's adminstration comes down on policy violators, the more people will push back.
“What they're doing is decidedly not viewpoint-neutral,” Skiba said. “They are choosing to enforce the policy against people they disagree with.”
This story was updated to include more information from Russ Skiba's meeting.
George Hale contributed to this story.
Aubrey is our higher education reporter and a Report For America corps member. Contact her at aubmwrig@iu.edu or follow her on X @aubreymwright.
