Walt Heinecke (Waltheinecke@hotmail.com) (434) 825-1896
September 8, 2024
Charlottesville, VA
UVA students have launched a petition that has garnered over 500 signatures and counting demanding that the UVA administration drop University Judiciary Committee (UJC) charges against the five remaining protesters still facing such charges following local and state police’s violent break up of the UVA and community pro-Palestinian encampment on May 4th, 2024.
The petition notes that in addition to retraumatizing students attacked by police in riot gear, some wielding semi- and automatic weapons, the charges are unjust and arbitrary. Given that local authorities, including the Albemarle County Prosecutor Jim Hingeley, has determined that there is not enough evidence to proceed with criminal charges and all no trespass orders have been dropped, the administration seeks to use the UJC charges to further antagonize students who have otherwise been fully exonerated through due process.
The students protesting at the encampment and on May 4th sought to realize UVA’s mission of being both “good and great” by demanding this ethos apply to the University’s operations and that they divest from Israeli companies and those profiting from the genocide in Gaza. In making an example of these students, administrators aim to deny UVA faculty, staff, students, and Charlottesville community members of their first amendment rights and protections and instill a culture of fear around free speech and the right to protests at UVA.
The UJC charges also cause material harm to those students who cannot obtain diplomas and secure employment, effectively locking them out of the job market despite their successful completion of their degrees. Current students facing charges remain in limbo. As they start the academic year, they are unsure of what will happen in their cases and whether they will be able to finish the semester with their peers.
A local civil rights attorney representing one of the students facing UJC charges recently stated “It’s over the top. ‘Let’s prosecute them. Let’s put them in judicial proceedings. Let’s take away their right to get a diploma.’ What else do you want to do to them?”...All for a small, entirely peaceful demonstration for which the university can give no adequate, truthful answer to why it happened, how it happened and who, in fact, ordered it happening.” (Daily Progress, August 25, 2024)
In a recent Statement the American Association of University Professors (“AAUP Condenms Wave of Administrative Policies Intended to Crackdown on Peaceful Campus Protests”) stated: “College and university students are both citizens and members of the academic community. As Citizens, students should enjoy the same freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and right of petition that other citizens enjoy and, as members of the academic community, they are subject to the obligations that accrue to them by virtue of this membership. Faculty members and administration officials should ensure that institutional powers are not employed to inhibit such intellectual and personal development of students as is often promoted by their exercise of the rights of citizenship both on and off campus....Administrators who claim that “expressive activity” policies protect academic freedom and student learning, even as they severely restrict its exercise, risk destroying the very freedoms of speech and expression they claim to protect.”
In dropping the UJC charges, UVA administrators could join with peer institutions like the University of Chicago, which have dropped all charges against student protesters. Such actions would serve as the first step towards transparency and healing, actions that they refused to take over the summer in the immediate wake of their egregious decisions on May 4.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that about 3100 people had been arrested at pro-Palestinian campus protests across the US, noting that 70 schools had arrested or detained people. In addition to arrests, a varying degree of force has been used, including the use of targeted police surveillance, tear gas, and batons.
After those arrests, some schools expelled those protesting students, banned them from campuses, and denied them degrees. Schools also established more onerous policies to stop occupations and other forms of peaceful protest. A few listened to the demands of their students, which included the divestment of funds related to Israel's violent occupation of Palestine.
What can students, teachers, and other university workers learn from these administrative policies and crackdowns? The first thing is to find out what data are out there, and then what information is missing, and perhaps deliberately withheld.
According to a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) database, out of 258 US universities that held protests, only 60 schools resorted to arrests.* Why did these schools, many name-brand schools, use arrests (and other forms of threats and coercion) as a tactic while others did not? A number of states reported no arrests, particularly in the US North, South, and West.
Analyzing the Data For Good Reasons
There appear to be few obvious answers (and measurable variables) to accurately explain this multi-layered phenomenon, something the media have largely ignored. But that does not mean that this cannot be explained to a better extent than the US media have explained it.
It's tempting to look at a few interesting data points (e.g. according to FIRE, Cornell University and Harvard did not have arrests, and neither did Baylor, Liberty University, and Hillsdale College. Six University of California schools had arrests but three did not. And all of the schools that came before the US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee examining antisemitism (Harvard, Penn, MIT) had arrests after their appearances. The Arizona House had similar hearings in 2023 and 2024 regarding antisemitism and their two biggest schools, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, had arrests.
Missing Data and Analysis
What else can we notice in this pattern about the administrations involved, the trustees, major donors, or the student body? How much pressure was there from major donors and trustees and can this be quantified? Anecdotally, there were a few public reports from wealthy donors who were unhappy with the protests. Who were those 3100 or so students and teachers who were arrested and what if any affiliations did they have? How many of the students who were arrested Jewish, and what side were they on? How many of these schools with arrests had chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Supporting Israel? How many schools with these student interest groups did not resort to arrests?
How much communication and coordination was there within schools and among schools, both by administrations and student interest groups? What other possible differences were there between the arrest group and the non-arrest group and are they measurable?
What other dependent variables besides arrests could be or should be be measured (e.g. convictions, fines and sentences, students expelled or banned from campus)? What will become of those who were arrested? Will they be part of a threat database? Will this interfere with their futures beyond higher education? Is it possible to come up with a path analysis or networking models of these events, to include what preceded the arrests and what followed? And what becomes of the few universities that operate more like fortresses today than ivory towers? How soon will they return to normal?
Arrest Group (Source: FIRE)*
4 Arizona State University Yes 8 Barnard College Yes 41 Columbia University Yes 46 Dartmouth College Yes 57 Emory University Yes 59 Florida State University Yes 60 Fordham University Yes 64 George Washington University Yes 78 Indiana University Yes 94 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yes 105 New Mexico State University Yes 106 New York University Yes 110 Northeastern University Yes 111 Northern Arizona University Yes 112 Northwestern University Yes 115 Ohio State University Yes 123 Portland State University Yes 124 Princeton University Yes 140 Stanford University Yes 142 Stony Brook University Yes 155 Tulane University Yes 156 University at Buffalo Yes 161 University of Arizona Yes 163 University of California, Berkeley Yes 165 University of California, Irvine Yes 166 University of California, Los Angeles Yes 169 University of California, San Diego Yes 170 University of California, Santa Barbara Yes 171 University of California, Santa Cruz Yes 176 University of Colorado, Denver Yes 177 University of Connecticut Yes 181 University of Florida Yes 182 University of Georgia Yes 184 University of Houston Yes 187 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Yes 189 University of Kansas Yes 194 University of Massachusetts Yes 197 University of Michigan Yes 198 University of Minnesota Yes 206 University of New Hampshire Yes 207 University of New Mexico Yes 208 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Yes 209 University of North Carolina, Charlotte Yes 212 University of Notre Dame Yes 215 University of Pennsylvania Yes 216 University of Pittsburgh Yes 220 University of South Carolina Yes 221 University of South Florida Yes 222 University of Southern California Yes 225 University of Texas, Austin Yes 226 University of Texas, Dallas Yes 231 University of Utah Yes 233 University of Virginia Yes 236 University of Wisconsin, Madison Yes 242 Virginia Commonwealth University Yes 243 Virginia Tech University Yes 247 Washington University in St Louis Yes 248 Wayne State University Yes 257 Yale University Yes
Non-arrest Group (Source: FIRE)*
1 American University No 2 Amherst College No 3 Appalachian State University No 5 Arkansas State University No 6 Auburn University No 7 Bard College No 9 Bates College No 10 Baylor University No 11 Berea College No 12 Binghamton University No 13 Boise State University No 14 Boston College No 15 Boston University No 16 Bowdoin College No 17 Bowling Green State University No 18 Brandeis University No 19 Brigham Young University No 20 Brown University No* 21 Bucknell University No 22 California Institute of Technology No 23 California Polytechnic State University No 24 California State University, Fresno No 25 California State University, Los Angeles No 26 Carleton College No 27 Carnegie Mellon University No 28 Case Western Reserve University No 29 Central Michigan University No 30 Chapman University No 31 Claremont McKenna College No 32 Clark University No 33 Clarkson University No 34 Clemson University No 35 Colby College No 36 Colgate University No 37 College of Charleston No 38 Colorado College No 39 Colorado School of Mines No 40 Colorado State University No 42 Connecticut College No 43 Cornell University No 44 Creighton University No 45 Dakota State University No 47 Davidson College No 48 Denison University No 49 DePaul University No 50 DePauw University No 51 Drexel University No 52 Duke University No 53 Duquesne University No 54 East Carolina University No 55 Eastern Kentucky University No 56 Eastern Michigan University No 58 Florida International University No 61 Franklin and Marshall College No 62 Furman University No 63 George Mason University No 65 Georgetown University No 66 Georgia Institute of Technology No 67 Georgia State University No 68 Gettysburg College No 69 Grinnell College No 70 Hamilton College No 71 Harvard University No* 72 Harvey Mudd College No 73 Haverford College No 74 Hillsdale College No 75 Howard University No 76 Illinois Institute of Technology No 77 Illinois State University No 79 Indiana University Purdue University No 80 Iowa State University No 81 James Madison University No 82 Johns Hopkins University No 83 Kansas State University No 84 Kent State University No 85 Kenyon College No 86 Knox College No 87 Lafayette College No 88 Lehigh University No 89 Liberty University No 90 Louisiana State University No 91 Loyola University, Chicago No 92 Macalester College No 93 Marquette University No 95 Miami University No 96 Michigan State University No 97 Michigan Technological University No 98 Middlebury College No 99 Mississippi State University No 100 Missouri State University No 101 Montana State University No 102 Montclair State University No 103 Mount Holyoke College No 104 New Jersey Institute of Technology No 107 North Carolina State University No 108 North Dakota State University No 109 Northeastern Illinois University No 113 Oberlin College No 114 Occidental College No 116 Ohio University No 117 Oklahoma State University No 118 Oregon State University No 119 Pennsylvania State University No 120 Pepperdine University No 121 Pitzer College No 122 Pomona College No 125 Purdue University No 126 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute No 127 Rice University No 128 Rowan University No 129 Rutgers University No 130 Saint Louis University No 131 San Diego State University No 132 San Jose State University No 133 Santa Clara University No 134 Scripps College No 135 Skidmore College No 136 Smith College No 137 Southern Illinois University, Carbondale No 138 Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville No 139 Southern Methodist University No 141 Stevens Institute of Technology No 143 SUNY at Albany No 144 SUNY College at Geneseo No 145 Swarthmore College No 146 Syracuse University No 147 Temple University No 148 Texas A&M University No 149 Texas State University No 150 Texas Tech University No 151 The College of William and Mary No 152 Towson University No 153 Trinity College No 154 Tufts University No 157 University of Alabama, Birmingham No 158 University of Alabama, Huntsville No 159 University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa No 160 University of Alaska No 162 University of Arkansas No 164 University of California, Davis No 167 University of California, Merced No 168 University of California, Riverside No 172 University of Central Florida No 173 University of Chicago No 174 University of Cincinnati No 175 University of Colorado, Boulder No 178 University of Dayton No 179 University of Delaware No 180 University of Denver No 183 University of Hawaii No 185 University of Idaho No 186 University of Illinois, Chicago No 188 University of Iowa No 190 University of Kentucky No 191 University of Louisville No 192 University of Maine No 193 University of Maryland No 195 University of Memphis No 196 University of Miami No 199 University of Mississippi No 200 University of Missouri, Columbia No 201 University of Missouri, Kansas City No 202 University of Missouri, St Louis No 203 University of Nebraska No 204 University of Nevada, Las Vegas No 205 University of Nevada, Reno No 210 University of North Carolina, Greensboro No 211 University of North Texas No 213 University of Oklahoma No 214 University of Oregon No 217 University of Rhode Island No 218 University of Rochester No 219 University of San Francisco No 223 University of Tennessee No 224 University of Texas, Arlington No 227 University of Texas, El Paso No 228 University of Texas, San Antonio No 229 University of Toledo No 230 University of Tulsa No 232 University of Vermont No 234 University of Washington No 235 University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire No 237 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee No 238 University of Wyoming No 239 Utah State University No 240 Vanderbilt University No 241 Vassar College No 244 Wake Forest University No 245 Washington and Lee University No 246 Washington State University No 249 Wellesley College No 250 Wesleyan University No 251 West Virginia University No 252 Western Michigan University No 253 Wheaton College No 254 Williams College No 255 Worcester Polytechnic Institute No 256 Wright State University No
*Media sources indicate that in 2023, 2 graduate students were arrested at Harvard, and more than 40 people were arrested at Brown University.
According to the LA Times, students at Cal Berkeley, San Jose State, San
Francisco State, and the University of San Francisco plan to
hold coordinated protests on their campuses tomorrow. These actions are a continuation of this year's earlier protests against Israel's atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza--which have been backed by the United States, through arms deals and federal funding.
With the US-backed genocide expanding to the West Bank and Southern Lebanon, there will certainly be student resistance despite administrative and police efforts to make campus occupations and other forms of protest (even free speech and freedom of assembly) difficult.
The greatest threat so far from these protests has been to the reputations of elite universities and their endowments, rather than to campus safety. And the greatest perceived threat to administrators is that students and their allies have the imagination to resist in novel ways--without violence.
Students have already gained partial victories with a handful of universities
which have offered to review investment strategies complicit with genocide. These progressive schools include Brown University and San Francisco State. At the University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian students organized as the Shut it Down Party have won student elections.
Coordinated and Secret Crackdowns
The crackdown measures that schools have already made to reduce free speech and other freedoms, and to stoke fear, are too numerous to list. Some of these measures, like increased surveillance are not even known by students, faculty, staff, and community folks. Just understanding that secret mass surveillance is possible helps administrators who want to quell good trouble.
What are the real threats to campus safety?
We hope these protests (and any other actions) will be nonviolent and have published a list of nonviolent methods for resistance as a starting point for discussion. Violence is not a good excuse even in crackdowns of this type, and it's a losing strategy for all sides--other than the right wing--who want chaos and hope to bait others. It takes great planning, discipline, and strategy not to take the bait. At the same time, we hope campus administrators will take the problems of sexual assault, hate crimes and other forms of violence, as well as the threats of mass shootings, more seriously than they have.
Updated September 3, 2024. UAW 2300 has reached a deal with Cornell University management after the longest strike in the university's history. The deal includes wage increases from 21 percent to 25.5 percent over the four years of the contract, a cost of living adjustment, and the elimination of the two-tier wage system. The agreement also introduces improvements to policies on time off, uniforms, inclement weather, and safety protections. HEI thanks Jimmy Jordan at the Ithaca Voice for his valuable contributions to this story.
This story is not just about Cornell University workers and Cornell University management, but also about Ithaca, New York: a progressive town that faces gentrification and high housing costs for working-class folks who feel the economic squeeze.
Recent Labor Victories Covered By the Higher Education Inquirer
After months of trying to negotiate with Cornell University management, hundreds of UAW Region 9 workers rallied for a fair contract following a 94 percent vote to strike if necessary.
August 18, 2024 (UAW Press Release)
Over 1,000 UAW members
have walked out on strike at Cornell University, as the university has
failed to present a fair package and has not bargained in good faith,
stalling and retaliating against protected union activity by the
workers.
The membership, made up of maintenance and facilities workers, dining
workers, gardeners, custodians, agriculture and horticulture workers
and others, are facing declining real wages even as Cornell’s endowment
has ballooned and tuition revenue has skyrocketed. Over the past four
years, Cornell’s endowment has soared 39% to nearly $10 billion and
tuition has increased 13% – all while workers’ buying power has fallen
5%.
Many of the workers have had to move out of Ithaca to afford housingand must pay expensive parking fees to park on campus. The wage for most
at the university is less than $22 per hour, far lower than what
economists estimate it costs for a family to live in the region. The
compensation for top administrators exceeded $12.4 million in 2022.
“Workers at Cornell are fed up with being exploited and used. The
university would much rather hoard its wealth and power than pay its
workers fairly,” said UAW Local 2300 President Christine Johnson.
“Cornell could have settled this weeks ago. Instead, they’ve scoffed
and laughed at us and broken federal law. We’re done playing around.”
“The workers at Cornell are pushing back against the university’s
arrogance and greed. With a $10 billion endowment, the administration
can more than afford the members’ demands,” said UAW Region 9 Director Daniel Vicente. “Workers in Local 2300 are showing the university that they are willing to do what’s needed to win what they deserve.”
Cornell University workers are the latest UAW members standing up to
billionaire class greed. Thousands of UAW members have won record
contracts in the last year, including auto workers at Daimler Truck, the
Big Three automakers, and Allison Transmission workers in Indianapolis,
IN.
After months of failing to negotiate with workers, and with the new school year closing in, Cornell University administrators asked that a mediator be appointed.
Cornell University workers asked for a 27 percent increase in wages over four years, with a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA). The university offered a 17 percent increase in wages over four years, with no COLA. The university wanted to keep a divisive two-tiered system which gave lower wages to workers who started after 1997. Cornell also wanted employees to continue to pay for parking.
The University appeals to our better natures, to our commitment to
community, to conceal their real ask: to betray these friends and
colleagues, at the moment when they are most in need of our support.
The Cornell leadership of the UAW 2300 chapter, by contrast, has
shown a richer vision of what community needs and what it can be. They
too appeal to our desire to help out, to step up. They have asked for
solidarity, rather than to undermine each other. To not replace
striking labor or the work that they do. To show up on the picket line.
To voice support. To demand that Cornell sign a fair contract. They have
asked us to take the side of those members of our community fighting
for a better life. They have asked us to stand with them.
And in so doing, they are teaching us that real community can only be
forged by a honest appraisal of injustice and unfairness, by a real
understanding of the power that a few employers and institutional
leaders hold over everyone else, and by a real commitment to challenging
it.
According to 14850.com, workers reached a tentative deal with management. 'Over the life of the agreement, members will see an average increase
of 21%-25.4% in hourly wages over the four years, depending on grade
and hire/job rate,' said the UAW on Tuesday night. A sharp increase in
pay to bring wages in line with the actual cost of living in Tompkins
County was one of the union’s key demands."