In preparation for the 2024-2025 academic year, chancellors at all ten University of California (UC) campuses have been directed by UC President Michael V. Drake to strictly enforce rules banning encampments, protests that block access to areas on campus, and masks that conceal identity.
The move is in response to the massive number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that happened on college campuses across the country this spring over the Israel-Hamas war.
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“Freedom to express diverse viewpoints is fundamental to the mission of the University, and lawful protests play a pivotal role in that process,” Drake said in a letter on Monday. “While the vast majority of protests held on our campuses are peaceful and nonviolent, some of the activities we saw this past year were not.”
Drake told chancellors that First Amendment rights and academic freedom must not “place community members in reasonable fear for their personal safety or infringe on their civil rights,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
Drake outlined the following steps “to facilitate more consistency” across UC locations.
- Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for policies impacting expressive activities, including policies that prohibit camping or encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement, masking to conceal identity, and refusing to reveal one’s identity when asked to do so by University personnel;
- Developing a framework for consistent implementation of our policies and for consistent responses to policy violations;
- Issuing guidance for notifications about campus climate resources and policies, in response to the California State Budget Bill; and
- Launching a UC Campus Climate Initiative to help all UC locations develop campus climate action plans for fall 2024 and beyond.
The announcement comes as UCLA is dealing with the financial and legal aftermath of violence that broke out when counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment. More than $600,000 in police officer overtime expenses were incurred over about three months this spring. Additionally, UCLA, as well as many other universities are facing lawsuits claiming the schools improperly handled incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus.
CSU Highlights ‘Time, Place, and Manner’ Policy in Hopes of Maintaining Order on Campus
On the same day the UC letter was sent, California State University (CSU) Chancellor Mildred A Garcia and the leaders of CSU’s 23 campuses issued a statement about the protests, saying, “the CSU must maintain an environment where its work can be conducted without disruption.”
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CSU is prohibiting the following activities under its time, place, and manner policy:
- Disruption or interference with the speech of others (or engaging in “heckler’s veto”)
- Camping, overnight demonstrations, or overnight loitering
- Unauthorized temporary or permanent structures, walls, barriers, barricades, furniture, or other objects
- Unauthorized commercial vehicles, moving vans or trucks, carts, carriages, trailers, wagons, or other vehicles of conveyance
- Entering campuses during non-public (“closed”) hours
- Disguises or concealment of identity
- Firearms or weapons
- Fires or fireworks
- Explosive materials
- Ambushing or lying in wait
- Shooting of arrows, missiles, or projectiles
- Chemical sprays, gas masks, body armor, shields, or laser pointers
- Human urination or defecation outside designated facilities
- Unauthorized climbing, scaling, or rappelling university structures
Protests over the Israel-Hamas war broke out at college campuses across the nation this spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators called for their schools to divest from companies that support Israel.
