Was there student input on these new policies? Who was it/which student organizations were involved?
In September 2023, I asked a task force to work on the issue of free speech on campus, an ongoing concern for several years on our campus and across institutions of higher education. The original task force included faculty members, students, and administrators in roughly equal portions. (I met with the group once, but I was not a member of the task force.) The task force was asked to advise the administration on matters related to free speech including postings, assembly, and invited speakers to assure that we would model free expression and civil discourse while adhering to good practices of protecting people’s well-being. While the College faculty had endorsed a statement supporting free speech in 2017, it provided little guidance on how to implement the statement and it did not take into account the views of the faculty of the School of Theology. The administration was concerned with these general issues and potential campus unrest that might occur during the upcoming elections in 2024, which motivated us to form a task force to provide guidance on free speech on campus.
After initial communications in the fall and an organizational meeting in November, it was suggested that the group be expanded to include more faculty and students, especially those from underrepresented populations on campus. Previously, I asked the OG and the SGA to offer representatives to participate on the task force. I assisted in the recruitment process to diversify student representation on the committee based on task force members’ recommendations. Unfortunately, only one student accepted the invitation. By February 2024, the following people had agreed to participate in the task force:
Lydia Reinig
Andrea Hatcher
Sean O’Rourke
Jim Peterman
Kyle Gallagher
Rachel Fredericks
Noah Shively
Hillary Bogart-Winkler
Emmit Reilly
Carrie Schupack
Margaret Crone
Delana Turner
At that point, I was no longer a part of the process, but I understand that the group had meetings to discuss models of other free speech policies on other campuses and tried to work from shared Google docs on formulating policies for our campus. According to people leading these discussions, it proved difficult to get people to engage with the process.
By the end of May, I met with the leaders of the task force to discuss the situation and how to move the process forward so that we could have policies in place by the start of the academic year and before the electoral season was in full swing. Drawing from earlier conversations of the task force, they agreed to take the lead and work with Kyle Gallagher on finalizing some of these policies over the summer.
As we know, that process was disrupted by Kyle’s untimely death, which deeply affected those working on this task. By the end of the summer, the leaders and a replacement for Kyle Gallagher had a draft policy on posting and the start of a draft on peaceful assembly. The policy committee provided feedback on the posting policy in two rounds of discussion, and on the early draft of a peaceful assembly policy in one round of discussion. Over the last two weeks, there has been an intensive effort to finalize revisions and promulgate the policies in order to have some policies in place. At this point and knowing that we were in the throes of the election season, I took more control over finalizing the policies based on earlier conversation with the policy committee and discussions with the University’s general counsel and vice-chancellor.
To directly answer your question and to summarize the above account, students were a part of the initial process, but that portion of the work did not seem to result in much engagement from all parties (not just students). Once the draft policies were brought to the policy committee, there was no direct student involvement because of the committee’s procedures and role. (I’ll address that below.)
If there wasn’t student input, why not?
I am pressed for time due to an important matter on campus, so I will share a response that I sent to Alexis, the OG president. Before your request for information arrived on Friday, she had contacted me about student participation on the policy committee. Here is my response to her:
“Let me provide a brief explanation of the role of the policy committee. First and foremost, the policy committee does not write policies. Instead, there are offices and administrators who serve as the people responsible for writing policies in their areas of operation. Those units bring recommendations for new policies or revisions to existing policies to the committee for review and discussion. Depending on the nature and complexity of the policies, there may be limited or robust feedback offered to the office writing the policy. Second, the guidelines on writing or revising policies asks those offices responsible for the policies to consult with stakeholders, when applicable. This step in the process can be difficult at times, especially when policies are needed by a particular date. Finally, most of the policies that come before the committee are of a regulatory nature such as updating Title IX regulations to comply with changes in federal law or address operations of the University such as contract policy and payment for employees’ work during emergency situations. This year, we have had a number of policies that relate to student life.
In thinking about how the committee operates and how the policy process is intended to work, I believe that the best opportunity for student input is when offices work on writing or revising policies. The challenge is that it is difficult for the policy committee to know how stakeholders have been consulted. Given this dilemma and the OG’s stated goal of engagement on new types of issues, I would welcome a conversation with you and other student leaders to think about how to improve the process.”
Were these new policies, specifically those referencing peaceful assembly not disrupting class/University proceedings, and those referencing who can post signs and where those signs can go, a reaction or a result to the war in Gaza protests last spring?
The gestation of this policy drafting process began long before the conflict in Gaza and the protests on our campus last spring, so the process certainly did not result from the situation in Gaza or the spring protests on our campus. They emerged from a general concern about concerns for free speech and incitement of people to violence on campuses throughout the country, which has been a growing trend in the United States. In recent years, many universities have been compelled to revise or draft statements on free speech and peaceful assembly on campus to provide guidance to those wishing to engage in such forms of expression because of these national trends. It is also important to have policies that clarify for administrators who must manage the situations resulting from such free speech and peaceful assembly when and how they should respond.
I would add that the Gaza protests on many campuses across the country and violence that ensued in response to protests, along with the rhetoric around electoral violence, compelled us to act quickly. The protests at Sewanee, which were peaceful, did provide some guidance as to how to write elements of the Peaceful Assembly Policy and Posting Policy, but they were not the reason for the writing of policies.
The concern for balancing free speech and safety for all parties is an underlying motivation of the policies. For example, with the exception of restrictions on political endorsements that apply to non-profit institutions of higher education, the policies are silent on regulation of content. The University administration wants to foster robust civil discourse and it does not wish to regulate what people may express. At the same time, we want to make sure that violence is not perpetrated or incited by assemblies or postings.
With regard to the protest on campus last spring, there were moments when many of us feared for the safety of the protesters. On the one hand, they assembled in an unsafe location, and we wanted to have them relocate to an area that would not be dangerous to them and All-Saints Chapel. Additionally, by the time that the protesters came down from the roof area of All-Saints Chapel, there were some fellow students who displayed anger toward the protesters. The Peaceful Assembly Policy seeks to secure the rights of people to peacefully assemble and to protect participants in the assembly and those who might oppose the assembly from potential violence.
With regard to the Posting Policy, previously the University did not have a stand alone policy on posting, but it did have statements and rules in the Student Organization Handbook that was in effect last year. The relevant section of the handbook clarified who could post announcements and where postings could be made. The Handbook was the basis of the policy that was developed, but we wanted to extend the policy to include banners and other postings by University offices to clarify the process for postings. The Posting Policy expands permissible postings by including these elements compared to the relevant section of the former Student Organization Handbook.
Why are there not faculty members who are not administration on the policy committee?
Why are there not students on the policy committee?
I believe that the answers to these last two questions are implied in my response to Alexis. Consultation with stakeholders is meant to occur with the drafting or revision process rather than in committee.
There is an additional point that I would make. Prior to the creation of the policy committee, the University administrative cabinet would generally be informed of potential revisions and new policies that were drafted. The cabinet members would provide feedback and guidance to the offices responsible for the policies. In the last year, there were changes in the makeup and meeting schedule of the University cabinet, which led me to set up the committee to replace that earlier function of the cabinet. In that sense, the committee’s work is a continuation of a prior practice under a new organization, shifting from the cabinet to the committee.