BELCHERTOWN — Protesters who were arrested at the May 7 pro-Palestinian rally on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus filed out of the Eastern Hampshire District Courthouse Wednesday morning after pretrial proceedings to gather with supporters, organizers, and legal support on the lawn. Pretrial hearings for the arrested protesters, who refer to themselves as the “Mullins 134,” began on July 8 and are expected to continue through September.
But legal processes present only half of the fallout they face over demonstrations last semester as the university continues to enforce sanctions of its own.
Representatives of UMass4Palestine, a campus coalition of pro-Palestine organizers, stood before a line of students, faculty, and other supporters holding signs urging the school to divest from war profiteers and recognize other requests by the group as they shared a statement and personal stories with the small crowd gathered outside court.
“To UMass, we ask, in what universe does arresting your students, staff, and faculty for exercising their right to protest count as keeping our community safe? How does militarized police violence against peaceful demonstrators translate into honoring our collective right to assemble?” said Eric Ross, a Ph.D. candidate in the school’s history department, reading part of the statement. “How does sanctioning students for speaking openly and earnestly about the genocide currently happening in Palestine count as freedom of speech?”
Those arrested on May 7 face an array of legal charges including trespassing, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and “disturbing behavior,” which encompasses these and other charges. The group is largely composed of UMass student protesters, but also includes student journalists who were covering the events, students from other local colleges, UMass alumni and faculty, and other community members.
UMass4Palestine representatives said that two students who remain unnamed to protect their identities, and who were not arrested on May 7 and have not been charged, were “unfairly singled out” as leaders of the protest, and that the UMass Police Department is pursuing felony charges against them.
A faculty representative who also wished to maintain anonymity to avoid administrative action against them said that on the university side, student degrees are being withheld as a form of academic punishment, along with fellowship and scholarship funding that students rely on.
Melinda Rose, interim director of news and media relations at UMass, said in an email to the Gazette that graduation requirements “include the completion of any outstanding obligations” which “includes the conduct process.”
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“Any arrest, by policy, results in a referral to the conduct office,” she said. “If a student voluntarily requests an extension of their hearings beyond graduation, which is their right under the Code of Student Conduct, this would result in the delay of their diploma being awarded.”
Speaking candidly, Ross recalled that after the arrests on campus many of his students told him they couldn’t come to class the next day because they were “terrified to leave their dorm rooms.”
“I have a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety,” Ross said about returning to campus in the fall, but he also assured the public that “we know that we are doing the right thing and they are doing the wrong thing … the conditions that brought us to protest in the first place are still ongoing.”
Rachel Weber, a criminal defense attorney who is part of the legal team defending the protesters, said that the negotiations called that day by Chancellor Javier Reyes were in “bad faith,” because as protesters and supporters convened with faculty to discuss the issue, “dozens and dozens” of police officers were being assembled on campus “as a way to chill dissent.”
“How is that a good-faith negotiation if there are riot police assembling by the dozens?” Weber implored. “That’s not a negotiation … that’s a setup.”
Weber said that, while legal charges against the protesters are likely to be dropped, school administration hasn’t been “interested” in letting up on their sanctions, noting that the administrative response to the pro-Palestine protests has been “inconsistent” with previous demonstrations and that protesters are being treated “more harshly” than in the past.
Assertions about the treatment of pro-Palestine protesters at UMass contrasting with lighter responses to previous campus protests has led to the opening of a federal investigation by the Department of Education that seeks to determine whether the university has engaged in discriminatory practices while handling dissent on campus.
Annie McGrew recounted her time being held for hours in custody after the police intervention, said that she had “never felt so helpless.” She recalled breaking down in tears as the pain of having her hands zip-tied behind her back made her pre-existing neck pain unbearable, and told of others around her “begging” nearby officers until they agreed to re-tie McGrew’s hands in front of her.
“I’ve never felt like I had less agency,” said McGrew.
Weber said that when the school’s administration is asked by legal representatives to justify their approach to the protests, “they just quote at us” from the Code of Conduct, which she called an attempt to “paper over” their “intentional choices.”
Regarding the police response, Rose said on behalf of UMass that “police did not engage with the encampment until 7:10 p.m., more than an hour after the negotiations were concluded and more than six hours after demonstrators were notified that police may respond if the fortified encampment was not taken down.”
Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.
