Week 11: Next-to-last protest against free speech policy on IU campus underscores pro-Gaza roots
Sunday night was the 11th week in a row for a protest at Sample Gates in Bloomington, against Indiana University’s new “expressive activities” policy, which was effective Aug. 1.
Sample Gates is the spot where Kirkwood Avenue dead ends at the western edge of the Bloomington campus.
On the university campus, during the 7-hour window from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., the policy prohibits expressive activities like vigils.
According to emeritus professor Russ Skiba, who led things off on Sunday, next week will mark the final protest, telling the gathering that in the next couple of days “you’ll get word on exactly why that is, but it’s a good reason.” [Added at 12:37 p.m. Nov. 4, 2024: news release on final protest]
Skiba added later during his remarks that protesters who attended the weekly vigils would be able to look back and say: “We are proud to have been involved in this. We believe this is something that made a difference at Indiana University.”
The university’s policy needed people to come out and make “a moral stand,” Skiba said.
The origin of the new “expressive activities” policy is connected to the pro-Gaza encampment on Dunn Meadow in spring of this year, which led to two days in late April, when the university used state police in riot gear to break up the encampment.
Tracing the new “expressive activities” policy to its origins on Sunday was Daniel Segal, who serves on the coordinating committee for Jewish Voices for Peace Indiana. Segal bookended his remarks with call-and-response: “Free Palestine…Let Gaza live…Let Lebanon live.”
Segal told the crowd that the struggle against “the repression of speech, the trampling of academic freedom at Indiana University is going to be a marathon.”
Segal continued, “It’s not going to end as long as people are protesting the genocide that the criminal Israeli state is committing in Gaza and the rampant violence.” He added, “As long as that is occurring, establishment leaders will be repressing speech and repressing rights of assembly and academic freedom on our campuses.”
The timing of the regular Sunday night protests is meant to deliberately violate the new policy. In recent weeks, the protest has started well before 11 p.m. so that participants who have already been sanctioned by the university and threatened with termination for further violations of the policy, can still speak on the campus side of the plaza.
A pattern has evolved: At 11 p.m. a handful of protesters who don’t want to risk termination from their jobs or expulsion from the school, retreat to the public sidewalk for the duration of the protest.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit over the policy on behalf of ten plaintiffs—all of whom joined the protest in Dunn Meadow against the war in Gaza on April 25, or in the following days, according to the filed complaint.
A key claim in the ACLU’s lawsuit is that the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. timeframe in UA-10 is “overbroad.”
All of the briefs have now been filed in connection with motion for a preliminary injunction, which was filed on Sept. 16.
On Oct. 1, the university filed its response to the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction. On Oct. 7, the ACLU filed its reply to the university’s response.
That means all the briefs are now filed in connection with the motion for a preliminary injunction, under the case management plan.
