Addressing free speech concerns amid University of Minnesota student encampment

CATHY WURZER: Students at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus are being urged to walk out of class later today as a protest against the Israel-Hamas war and a police shut down of a student sit-in on the university mall this morning. It mirrors encampments at college campuses across the country.

U of M encampment organizers set up tents at 4 o'clock this morning. By 8:00 AM, everything was torn down. Encampment organizers want the university to sever financial ties with companies that do business with the Israeli army, including Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and General Dynamics. Merlin Van Alstine is a member of Students for a Democratic Society at the university.

MERLIN VAN ALSTINE: We will not back down. Political repression does not scare us. We've fought political repression before, and this is not something that we're new to.

CATHY WURZER: According to a statement from the university, campus police told those present they were in violation of university policy and state trespassing law because tents are not allowed on any university property for any purpose without a permit. Campus police took down the tents and arrested nine students who did not leave. Those students are being held in the Hennepin County Jail. However, protesters were not deterred and have set up outside the jail.

[CHANTING]

SUBJECT: From the river to the sea.

CROWD: From the river to the sea.

SUBJECT: Palestine will be free.

CROWD: Palestine will be free.

CATHY WURZER: Students plan to continue protesting the university's involvement with companies tied to the Israeli military at 2:00 PM with that walkout planned on-campus. Joining me now is University of Minnesota Professor Eric Van Wyk. He's the chair of the academic freedom and tenure committee. Maybe he can shed some light on student speech and protest at the University of Minnesota. Professor, welcome.

ERIC VAN WYK: Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: How do you view the university's decision to shut down protests like the one that occurred this morning?

ERIC VAN WYK: Well, it seems that it was shut down pretty quickly. Security, certainly, is an important concern. I know things like this have happened on other campuses, and then students are usually given some amount of time for a protest or rally to take place so those views can be expressed and heard.

They didn't seem to be given that opportunity here. I guess I haven't heard anything official from the university yet, but it seems that it was a pretty aggressive move to remove them before anything could even get started.

CATHY WURZER: Give us a sense, those of us who are not on-campus, how has the conversation around student free speech and the Israel-Gaza conflict escalated since last October?

ERIC VAN WYK: It's escalated and declined in different ways. So there's a lot of concern initially about what happened on October 7, and then, of course, more recently, a lot of concern raised about what's happening in Gaza. So that conversation sort of ebbs and flows in different ways. There's a lot of concern about people's ability to speak openly on this topic. There's a lot of different views. And one thing academic freedom sort of gives someone is the right to be heard and the right to speak openly on these sorts of things. So that's something that the committee I chair is very concerned about.

CATHY WURZER: I recall, there were some departments speaking out too. I think, was it the gender, women, and sexuality studies department had a statement on the conflict last fall? How did that go over?

ERIC VAN WYK: So they had a statement. There were three other departments or academic units that have statements. So those statements were ones that raised concerns in some eyes, and other folks felt that those statements were a response to lend support to a group of people that felt they hadn't been heard yet on that issue. So they certainly made a lot more news than we're used to getting on those kinds of statements.

CATHY WURZER: Are there guidelines at the university in place for student protests?

ERIC VAN WYK: I'm sure there are, right? It's not something I know exactly the details on how the university handles student protest. Generally, there's a sense that want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to be heard. So I think, last several months ago, when Amy Coney Barrett was giving a talk, there was an opportunity-- there was a protest by students and others at that event.

But then those protests were made, and the talk was able to continue. So that instance, I think, was handled reasonably well, that the event wasn't shut down. And also those wanting to protest that person's presence were given a chance to have their voices heard.

CATHY WURZER: And as you say, what happened this morning, in your view, seemed to be a little quick when it came to the police clearing out that encampment. I'm wondering, from where you sit as a professor, what about balancing student freedom of speech and academic free speech? How does that work on-campus?

ERIC VAN WYK: Yeah, so there's sort of a couple issues. One is what we call academic freedom, and another is one's First Amendment right to free speech. And those are similar concerns. Academic freedom is really the one that is enshrined in most universities, to give faculty, students, anyone involved, at least at Minnesota, anyone involved in the intellectual work of the institution the freedom to engage in that work in the way they see fit and also to do so without sort of undue institutional restraint or interference in that work.

And so they're similar things, but they're not exactly the same. And academic freedom certainly comes with some notions of responsibility as well. If I go and speak on a topic that is a matter of public concern, then I would really need to indicate that I would be speaking for myself and not speaking for the institution as a whole.

And some of these statements that were put up recently, then, did come with disclaimers a little bit later to indicate that the unit was speaking for themselves and not for the entire institution. There seemed to be some confusion about that initially, and thus, those disclaimers were added a little after those statements were added. And that's something that the academic freedom and tenure committee is working on now is trying to flesh out some recommendations on how and when these kinds of statements can be made.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering, of course, you know, student protests are nothing new, given what we've seen over the decades. There's a rich history of campus protests, right? And I'm wondering, what's missing from the institutional reaction across the country now to some of the protests that we're seeing? How would you gauge, again, the institutional reaction so far?

ERIC VAN WYK: I guess one thing that we have seen is that the concerns of safety are often raised as an excuse to shut down speech. This happened recently at the University of Southern California. The valedictorian was given an opportunity to speak at her graduation ceremony.

Her name was Asma Tabassum. And there were sort of concerns about her safety, and so that was canceled. Some felt that those concerns were maybe not completely genuine. This happened also at Indiana University at Bloomington recently, where Palestinian artist Samia Halaby had her exhibition canceled.

Again, the argument was that it was for security reasons. But it's not clear that that was the case. Certainly, at that campus, the faculty recently passed a vote of no confidence in that administration because of that. So this sort of balance of safety and speech is important, but it has to be treated properly so that safety is not used as an excuse to shut down speech.

CATHY WURZER: So if these students continue to protest, what do you think the university, how might the response look going forward? What do you hope the U of M does going forward?

ERIC VAN WYK: Well, I think they would be obliged to give people the opportunity to peacefully protest. And so giving people space for that is important. If one sort of crosses some lines of what the exact rules are, usually one tries to not enforce these to the exact letter, but have some discretion and see that as long as things are moving along peacefully, that you generally want to let people express their views and not be hindered by the university or any other sort of institutional forces in doing that.

CATHY WURZER: And if it's not peaceful? Columbia University decided to hold remote classes because of those protests. Does that look like the university has capitulated to forces driving the protests?

ERIC VAN WYK: I guess you'd have to ask them what their motivations are. I wouldn't want to speculate what their exact motivations are. But certainly, it's a very big topic. There's a lot of news coverage about it.

I'm sure that the administration would like to not have concerns on our campus. So they seem to have moved quickly, but I guess I'd wait to hear from them exactly. They may know something that the rest of us don't know about why they moved so fast on this.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Professor, I know you're busy. Thank you for taking the time.

ERIC VAN WYK: My pleasure. Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Eric Van Wyk, who's the chair of the University of Minnesota's academic freedom and tenure committee.