Students and faculty gathered at Indiana University’s Sample Gates early Monday for a candlelight vigil to protest new restrictions on campus speech.
The event, organized by a coalition of campus groups concerned about the future of free speech at IU, coincided with the start of the fall semester.
Listen: IU's new expressive activities policy
Last month, the IU Board of Trustees passed a new “expressive activities” policy after criticism of the university’s handling of antiwar protests in the spring. The policy prohibits protests near university buildings between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
At the Sample Gates vigil, which started just before midnight, participants said they were undeterred by the new restrictions.
In an interview, Ben Robinson, a Germanic studies professor who helped organize the event, said, “I can't for the life of me think of any interest that a world-renowned university would have in silencing all expression between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. In fact, that seems to betray the interests of the institution.”
“A policy so broadly written, narrowly tailored to nothing, and apparently upholding an institutional interest that's silencing students and faculty, is a threat to IU. And we're here, in some sense, to protect IU from that threat,” he said.
During the event, IU police officers observed the crowd from across the street but didn’t interfere. More police vehicles idled blocks away.
Before the crowd thinned out around 2 a.m., participants used chalk to write pro-Palestinian and anti-war slogans on and around the Sample Gates.
One group wrote “Free Speech Ends Here” in large print on the ground in front of the gates, which serve as a symbolic entryway to the university. Other slogans called on university President Pamela Whitten to resign and for IU to divest from Israel and cut ties with the Crane naval base.
The vigil’s organizers said they would hold a press conference Monday afternoon to discuss the speech policy and more plans to push back against it.
“This is to mark — on the very first day of school — our determination that the speech which we cherish won't die on this campus,” Robinson said.
IU police and university officials didn’t immediately respond to interview requests early Monday.
