Does Sewanee’s protest policy limit student voices?
Camille Pfister
Editor-in-chief
Sewanee’s administration has a problem with student input. Students at Sewanee spend a lot of time getting involved in their community, from working for the Tiger Entertainment Board (TEB), to serving on the Student Government Association (SGA), to planning events within their individual theme house. But when it comes to impactful policy changes, we are, more often than not, shut out of the room.
As students came back to campus for the fall semester, they were greeted with revised policies governing campus parking and social gatherings. The social events policy, released in mid-August, drew so much criticism from students and alumni that it was pulled back and revised. Last week, a Friday afternoon email from Provost Scott Wilson to the University community introduced two more sets of regulations – a University Posting Policy and a Peaceful Assembly Policy. Both the revised and new policies were introduced with little to no warning, and with little to no student input.
That has prompted understandable concern. SGA president McClain Brooks (C’ 25) told The Purple, “I was not informed prior to the release to the student body of the Peaceful Assembly and Posting Policy. I hope in the future of Sewanee policies creations and revisions that students are involved throughout the process (including the drafting of and approval of said policies) especially if these policies will impact students.”
Asked about the new protest and posting regulations, Provost Scott Wilson offered a written statement explaining how those were submitted by Student Life and finalized over the summer by a policy committee composed of university administrators. He noted that the Student Life staff member who discussed the changes with some students was assistant Dean Kyle Gallagher, who passed away over the summer break.
“Students were a part of the initial process [of drafting the policies in 2023], but that portion of the work did not seem to result in much engagement from all parties (not just students),” Provost Wilson wrote to The Purple. “Once the draft policies were brought to the policy committee, there was no direct student involvement because of the committee’s procedures and role.” [Provost Wilson’s full statement can be found online.]
The latest policies come after the protests at the end of the spring semester. Amid exam week, students and some recent graduates camped around the front of All Saints Chapel, hanging large banners from a second-floor balcony of the chapel facing University Avenue to demand divestment of the University’s endowment from companies supplying Israel’s military amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Provost Wilson acknowledged that the protest last spring “compelled us to act quickly” and provided “some guidance” for development of the Peaceful Assembly Policy released Friday afternoon. He noted that those protesters had “assembled in an unsafe location” and some “fellow students who displayed anger towards the protesters.”
The protesters pulled down their banners from the front of the chapel on May 2 after dialogue with Vice Chancellor Rob Pearigen and a University commitment to have student representatives discuss university investments with members of the Board of Regents – talks which began over the summer break. But the protesters then moved the banners to the chapel balcony facing the quad just before the annual Senior Toast was held there. Some seniors were upset at the disruption of the beloved Sewanee graduation-week tradition.
The provost told The Purple that the new protest policy was a balance of competing interests. “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,” the provost wrote.
While the disinvestment protest influenced the new set of rules, Provost Wilson added, “this policy drafting process began long before the conflict in Gaza and the protests last spring.”
The protest policy dictates who can organize demonstrations and where they can be held – rules that arguably could limit some of the past protests that have drawn national attention to the Mountain and have sometimes prompted changes in University policies.
In 1953, all but one faculty member at the School of Theology resigned along with the University’s Chaplain, and the head of the Religion Department at the College after Sewanee’s Board of Trustees voted not to admit Black men to the School of Theology. The resignations drew national news coverage, and the trustees quickly reversed their decisions.
In 2015, Sewanee invited former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to speak and meet with students. Students appeared at his talk carrying signs protesting his role in the enhanced interrogation policies of the Bush administration. The Purple reported that Fleming Beaver (C’ 16), a member of the Sewanee Democrats and a leader of the protest, called the attorney general’s actions while in office “a gross violation of human rights,” but Beaver also praised the administration for bringing such a prominent figure to campus.
In January 2017, students, faculty, staff, and community members held a candlelight vigil on the quad to protest new Trump administration restrictions on immigration. Though the gathering was organized by several students and supported by the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, no recognized student organization was directly responsible for the event.
In December of 2017, student residents of the Wick started a petition asking the Board of Regents to rescind an honorary degree given in 2016 to Charlie Rose, a nationally known journalist and television personality. In November 2017, Rose was accused by seven women of various acts of sexual misconduct. At the time the Wick students launched their effort, Sewanee was the only institution of higher learning that had not revoked an honorary degree given to Rose. By mid February 2018, the students’ petition had more than 1100 signatures.
In February 2018, Sewanee’s two student trustees, Claire Brickson (C’ 18) and Mary Margaret Murdock (C’ 19), asked the Board of Regents to rescind Rose’s honorary degree. The Purple reported that the student trustees’ speech to the Regents cited Sewanee’s issues with sexual misconduct, arguing that “revoking Charlie Rose’s degree sends a clear statement to those 17 individuals who reported rapes on campus in 2016, that we support their decision to come forward.”
On Feb. 15, 2018, The Purple reported that the Regents had declined the student trustees’ request.
“The morning after the decision was released, a group of students plastered more than 100 posters around campus, many of which were later ripped down by non-students,” the Purple article stated. “Many posters included an excerpt from the letter by the Board, while others specifically called for the revocation of the degree and challenged Sewanee’s commitment to condemning sexual assault on campus.”
The board’s written response to the students stated: “In [the Honor Code’s] essence, we do not condone perverse behavior. We want to be clear that we have stood, and always will stand, against sexual harassment of women or men. At the same time, we do not believe it is our place to condemn the individual. In fact, we think there is grave danger were we to go down that path. We impose a penalty where appropriate, but we also offer forgiveness. That said, it would be easy to condemn Mr. Rose and rescind the honorary degree. It is harder not to do so. Clarification comes in the question “Is there a hierarchy of sin?” quickly followed by “Are we all not sinners?” Therein lies the ecumenical rub. If we condemn a person then who among us sinners should not also be condemned?”
The issue came to a head on Feb. 22, 2018, when more than 200 students, faculty, staff, seminary students, alumni and community members gathered on the Quad to protest the Regents’ decision. The demonstration, organized by a group of students who called themselves the Leadership Coalition and Speak Up Sewanee, concluded with students and faculty laying their gowns across the front steps of All Saints’ Chapel. One of the organizers asked the attendees to “continue to not wear your gown either to class or while teaching or during comps if you’re a senior or, should it come to it, graduation, until this degree is revoked.”
The protests drew national attention as the University faculty unanimously passed a resolution to revoke Rose’s honorary degree, and students and alumni alike spoke to the news media and wrote open letters condemning the decision by their administration.
On March 21, 2018, Vice Chancellor John McCardell announced that the Board of Regents held an emergency meeting and revoked Rose’s honorary degree.
It’s important to recognize that real, tangible change has come when Sewanee students and faculty alike have stood up and said “enough is enough.” In 1953 when faculty members and the chaplain quit over the reluctance to integrate, the administration certainly didn’t like it. But those actions sent a needed and courageous message. The demonstrations in 2018 also sent an important message: Sewanee should not stand by sexual assaulters. Administrators didn’t like it when news outlets in Atlanta and beyond were posting The Purple’s columns and interviewing students, but the student-led efforts made the Regents change their minds.
That brings us to potentially problematic restrictions in Sewanee’s new Peaceful Assembly Policy. The new rules require protests to be hosted by registered student organizations. Those groups must submit “written notice to the University’s Office of Student Involvement” at least 72 hours in advance and must “reserve space on the Event Management Page.” The policy does include a caveat that some peaceful assemblies arising in response to events of the day might not be able to give 72 hours written notice. But in those circumstances, the policy states, organizers should “contact by email or phone the University’s Office of Student Involvement or the Office of the Provost and the Sewanee Police Department to notify them of any plans for the peaceful assembly.”
The key here is that the University has the right to “approve, deny, or modify the peaceful assembly plan if necessary.” The policy gives no information about what might get a peaceful assembly modified or denied. Non-compliance with the policy may lead to “disciplinary consequences” as outlined in the Student Code of Conduct and the Staff Handbook.
It’s also important to note that none of the protests in Sewanee’s history came after giving the administration 72 hours notice, much less the right to change or stop the demonstrations. The protest in 2015 against Gonzales would be in violation of the rule that all peaceful assemblies must take place in “designated zones that are a distance of 20 feet or more from University buildings.” In fact, all of the protests that Sewanee has had would be in violation of this policy, including a gun violence protest on the quad that followed the 2023 mass shooting at Covenant School in Nashville. The new rules mandate that any demonstration or assembly must take place at least 20 feet from University buildings. The Quad is less than 20 feet from both Walsh Ellett and the Chapel, depending on where people are standing, and photos of the gun violence protest clearly showed dozens of people within less than 20 feet of Walsh Ellett. The gun violence protest included a call for a walkout from classes, a move that was supported by professors and administrators. That too, goes against the new policy’s rule that assemblies must not interrupt “class or events.”
Sewanee’s previous protests – actions that allowed students to use their voices and affect needed change – might not have been approved under the new policy. That raises important questions about whether the new rules will restrict First Amendment rights for the entire University community.
Yet again, significant policies governing the Sewanee community have been rolled out without much student input. It’s getting frustrating being a student who doesn’t feel respected or heard.
It’s hard not to think that may be the point.