Week 6: IU Bloomington now warning rank-and-file residents for violation of speech policy
Starting a half hour earlier this past Sunday was the weekly 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.
The choice to start around 10:30 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. was prompted by a desire to wrap up the demonstration earlier for people who have to work the next day, while still pushing past 11 p.m. which still made the event 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.
Highlights of Sunday’s event included the news that the university is now issuing warnings to people who are not current university affiliates for violating the policy. Previously, the university has issued warnings to faculty, staff, and students.
On Sunday, retired local attorney Guy Loftman, told the group he had received a letter from IU general counsel Anthony Prather that states: “Please accept this letter as notice that any subsequent violations of UA-10 could lead to immediate action by Indiana University including but not limited to citation and/or trespass.” Loftman is an alum, but does not have a current IU affiliation.
In his reply to Prather, part of which Loftman read aloud on Sunday, he wrote, “As applied to my participation in vigils at Sample Gates, I do not understand how that conduct would not materially and substantially disrupt official activities, business, or operations of the University at 10:59 p.m., but would materially and substantially disrupt official activities, business, or operations of the University at 11:01 p.m.”
At the previous week’s protest, Loftman had pointed out that the university, by ignoring him, but threatening members of the university community with discipline, including firing or expulsion, was not applying its policy uniformly.
Last Sunday, 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.”
[Added Oct. 1, 2024: Loftman had a meeting with Prather on Sept. 30, the day after Sunday’s protest. After the meeting, Loftman sent an email to Prather, thanking him for taking the time to meet, and making a request: “My hope, my request, is that the University declare a moratorium on enforcement of the 11 PM curfew until UA-10 is reviewed thoroughly next Spring, and that a University-wide collegial process to do so begin this Fall.”]
As in previous weeks, Sunday’s protest also included remarks from speakers that tied the new policy on expressive activities to protests supporting Gaza in Dunn Meadow this spring. In late April, the university on two occasions used state police in riot gear to break up the encampment, arresting several people.
Among those arrested was Sarah Phillips, a professor of anthropology. On Sunday, her husband, William Morris, recounted his wife’s arrest by acting out the actions of those involved. He described it this way: “Snipers on the roof, guards plowing people down, big, muscular dudes that have had a lifetime of training on how to harass people, knocking her down, knocking this student down.”
Another speaker on Sunday helped plant a garden in Dunn Meadow in the summer-long encampment that persisted after the university’s late-April enforcement action. In early August, the encampment was cleared.
She described the garden she’d helped plant, subsequently torn out by a university backhoe, as a tribute to Sabiyah and Bassem Abu Rahman. She described how Israeli soldiers had been firing tear gas canisters at protesters in the West Bank when Bassem had tried to convince them to stop. Instead they aimed a canister at his chest, killing him, she said.
Bassem’s mother, Sabiyah had planted gardens in the spent tear gas canisters that she collected up and placed on the spot where her son had been killed.
The Dunn Meadow gardens were planted in honor of Sabiyah and Bassem Abu Rahman, but also as a way to “decolonize the lawn”—with corn, squash, bee balm and coneflowers, she said.
Here’s how she talked about the garden: “Our community doesn’t need [Naval Support Activity] Crane to survive. All we need is each other. People came from all over town with compost and straw seedlings and farming know-how. And we watered from the creek, and the rain. Bees and butterflies returned to Dunn Meadow. How many of you have seen any life in Dunn Meadow in months?”
She continued: “We showed them we care more than we fear their power. We showed them that we don’t need them for shelter, medical care or food. That 5-by-5-foot garden produced probably 50 squash, hundreds of radishes and tomatoes. And the corn would be ready by now if IU hadn’t bulldozed it.”
She added, “Think about what this meadow was like before settlers turned it from a sustainable prairie into a drab waste of water with nothing to pollinate. Get pissed! Think about how when they bulldoze this garden, they bulldozed a graveyard. It’s a place of remembrance and a promise to those we’ve lost, the families and friends of our families and friends, that this fight doesn’t end until colonialism ends.”
She wrapped up her remarks as she planted signs in the flower beds at Sample Gates, saying, “So with that in mind, welcome back to the Sabiyah and Bassem Abu Rahma Memorial Garden. Remember they tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we are seeds!”
A constitutional question about IU’s expressive activities 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.
[Added Oct. 1, 2024: On Oct. 1, the university filed its response to the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction.]
