University of Virginia President Jim Ryan says a review will be conducted of the university’s decision to call in state police to break up an encampment of pro-Palestine protesters on Grounds earlier this year.
Ryan made that announcement during a Senate Faculty meeting on Friday, providing few specifics but assuring faculty that the details will be sorted out in the coming weeks.
“I am sorry that it has taken this long, believe me, and I appreciate your patience, but there will be a review of everything that led up to it, decisions that were made by UVa on how it could have ended differently and more recommendations for what we could do differently going forward next time,” Ryan told faculty leaders.
The Faculty Senate first called for a review fewer than two weeks after the controversial crackdown, during which 27 people — most of them students — were arrested and armed state police officers deployed pepper stray into a crowd that included supporters, hecklers, spectators, bystanders and the press.
“I have wanted to do a review since May 5. It has taken far longer than it should to organize,” said Ryan, attributing the delay to disagreements on how the review should be structured. “But I feel like we are getting very close to being able to announce when the review will start and who will be leading it. That should be settled in the next couple of weeks.”
The protest opposing UVa’s ties to Israel amid that country’s now-yearlong war with Palestinian terror group Hamas was on its fifth day when state police approached the encampment, which had previously consisted of students sitting on blankets on a parcel of land between the University Chapel and the university’s iconic Rotunda. Tents were erected on the night of May 3 as rain began to fall.
In explaining its decision to request state police, UVa has said that the tents violated school policy, that they feared that the encampment would grow larger and that four men dressed in black entered the encampment on the night of May 3 and posed a threat to public safety. The university’s tent policy has been a subject of debate, as protesters said they believed they were in compliance with guidance saying recreational tents were allowed on Grounds. In addition, the size of the protest had actually been dwindling since its first day. And further, there has been no more information from the university or law enforcement as to who the four men in black were; none of the 27 people arrested appear to match the limited description UVa has provided, and some witnesses have questioned their existence.
The May 14 resolution passed by the Faculty Senate asked that administration “immediately arrange for an independent and external, university-wide institutional review” and that the findings be made public.
Asked during the Friday meeting if the review would be external and independent, Ryan responded that he was “working on both.”
“We’re close to the finish line of getting there. I think you’ll be pleased, but I don’t want to get ahead of this, and we’re talking with someone now, so I’ll know more in a week or two,” he said.
While Ryan said the report would be “shared with the university,” he did not say if that meant just its administrators and governing Board of Visitors or also faculty, students and the public.
Some faculty members renewed calls for an investigation on Oct. 6 during a Zoom meeting titled, “Repression on Grounds: A Virtual Town Hall on May 4 and Its Aftermath.” Over the course of 90 minutes, multiple students and faculty members spoke about their experiences on May 4 and condemned UVa’s response.
“It should be a basic principle for any university leadership that you do not bring guns on campus to suppress unarmed protests, let alone a phalanx of men with assault rifles trained on unarmed students,” assistant professor Noah Salomon said during that meeting.
Speakers also addressed how pro-Palestine demonstrations can continue in the face of new protest policies that UVa instituted just before the start of the fall semester, which limit the time, place and manner that protests are permitted on Grounds. With the backing of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, similar policies — including an expanded prohibition on tents and a requirement that anyone wearing a mask identify themselves when asked by officials — have been instituted at universities across the state.
On Friday, Ryan said he was surprised that there have been few demonstrations this semester, both at UVa and at other colleges across the country.
“There have been sporadic protests but nothing like what happened in the spring. I don’t know the reason for that,” Ryan said.
He added that while May 4 received significant attention — “Not surprisingly. It was incredibly traumatic,” Ryan said — there were many other protests over the past school year in which students came to Student Affairs officials for clarity on the rules for protests. So far, that has not happened this semester.
According to Ryan, the forthcoming review will include a set of recommendations that the Faculty Senate can consider endorsing and the investigation will offer opportunities for the protesters and witnesses to participate.
“Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, they’re the ones who have a lot of the information,” Ryan said. “The investigation or the review is only going to be as useful and as credible as the information that’s provided to the person who’s doing the investigation or the review.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com