Week 5: Indiana University Bloomington campus free speech protest now Sunday routine
Just after 11 p.m. at Indiana University’s Sample Gates in Bloomington on Sunday night was the fifth week in a row that a protest was held against IU’s new “expressive activities” policy.
It’s the spot where Kirkwood Avenue dead ends at the western edge of the Bloomington campus.
The choice of 11 p.m. as a start time and the location on campus was a deliberate violation of the policy. On the university campus, during the 7-hour window from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., the policy prohibits expressive activities like vigils.
The now weekly events have settled into a kind of awkward routine, where university officials are on site to confirm with participants that what they are about to do violates the policy. On Sunday, that message was delivered by IU’s deputy superintendent of public safety, Anthony Williams and vice provost for student life, Lamar Hylton.
After that perfunctory step is taken, one of the protest organizers for the delivers a caution to ensure that participants are aware the university officials and police who are present—they will report to IU’s vice provost for faculty and academic affairs any conduct of faculty, staff, and students that is in violation of the policy.
Faculty and staff have been given formal reprimands and threatened with the termination of their employment if they repeat the offense.
Delivering the opening caution on Sunday was Guy Loftman, an IU alum, civil rights activist and former attorney who practiced law in Bloomington for 40 years.
Loftman’s main point on Sunday was the idea that the university did not care about the actual activities of expression, but rather who was engaged in those activities. The university chose to punish faculty, students and staff, but did not take any action against those who were not currently affiliated with the institution.
Loftman put it like this: “I think what they’ve decided to do, since they can’t fire me and they can’t expel me, is they’re going to ignore me.” Loftman continued, “That is so irritating, but they can ignore me.” He added, “They have a constitutional right to ignore me—but they don’t have a constitutional right to treat people differently based on their status, based on their age, based on what they say.”
“They’re only punishing people in the university community,” Loftman said.
As they did last week, some of the protesters spoke from the public sidewalk through a portable PA system to amplify their voices to be heard at Sample Gates.
Through the PA system came a report from last Tuesday’s (Sept. 17) Bloomington Faculty Council meeting, about a question that professor of folklore and ethnomusicology David McDonald had asked of provost Rahul Shrivastav.
McDonald has been cited by the university for participating in one of the protests at Sample Gates, something he has written about on the Medium platform.
McDonald’s question was similar to the one that Loftman had posed: Why is the university treating different people differently under the policy?
At the Sept. 17 BFC meeting, McDonald set up his question to Shrivastav with some background: “So far, we have 18 faculty and students who have been cited for violation at the Sample Gates.”
McDonald followed up with two questions. The first: “Have IUPD officers been dispatched to other parts of campus to find violators of the policy, or has it only been directed at the Sample Gates?” The second: “Four hundred [total] people -ish have attended those candlelight vigils. Eighteen have been cited. Why have not the full 400 been cited for violation of this policy?”
At the Sept. 17 BFC meeting, Shrivastav responded by saying that if a complaint is received, the appropriate process is followed—for students, faculty, and staff. “As far as I know, we have followed the process in every complaint we have received,” Shrivastav said. He added, “There may be more coming. I have no idea. We take action when we become aware of a complaint.”
A constitutional question about the policy is now being litigated in federal court. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on Aug. 29. The defendants in the case are the IU board of trustees and IU president Pamela Whitten.
The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of ten plaintiffs—all of whom joined a protest in Dunn Meadow against the war in Gaza on April 25, or in the following days, according to the filed complaint.
The key point of the ACLU lawsuit is that the policy violates the First Amendment, because the time period from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. is “substantially overbroad and is not appropriately tailored.”
A brief in support of the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction was filed on Sept. 16. Based on the agreed upon case management schedule, by Oct. 1, the university has to submit its brief in response to the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The ACLU will then have until Oct. 8 to reply to the university’s response.
That likely means at least another three weeks of Sunday night protests, with IU administrators present.
