University of Virginia and police officials defended actions that led to the arrests of more than 25 pro-Palestinian protesters on campus grounds over the weekend, even as faculty members and others criticized what they saw as an overly aggressive response.
“We felt like this was escalating and had the potential to get out of hand,” Ryan said at the town hall.
But faculty members who witnessed the arrests questioned that account, saying law enforcement personnel were too heavy-handed in breaking up a peaceful demonstration.
“What we saw on Saturday was brutal,” Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor of English and global studies who has been helping student demonstrators and witnessed Saturday’s arrests, said in an interview.
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The arrests came after dozens of law enforcement officers in riot gear surrounded a student encampment at Virginia’s flagship university in Charlottesville and used pepper spray to disperse people from the area. Demonstrators first set up the encampment on a lawn outside the school chapel on April 30, joining other protests over the Israel-Gaza war on college campuses around the country.
Tents were erected on the site Friday night because of rainy weather, demonstrators said. The next day, law enforcement officers arrived in increasing numbers. By Saturday afternoon, police with riot shields and headgear began to clear the encampment, pushing students to the ground and pulling them by their arms. Police used zip ties and pepper spray, causing protesters to flee while clutching their eyes.
U-Va. officials said 27 people were arrested: 12 students; four professors; three former employees and students; and eight with no affiliation to the school.
More than 2,300 people have been arrested on campuses across the country over the past two weeks, according to a Washington Post tally of news reports and police and university statements.
Walt Heinecke, president of the American Association of University Professors of U-Va., said that the decisions on Saturday were miscalculated. Heinecke, who spent days in the encampment as a faculty liaison to the student protesters, said the encampment had been a peaceful space until the police showed up.
“It didn’t need to happen. It could have been avoided,” Heinecke, an associate professor in the school of education and human development, said in an interview. “Our president has missed the boat on this one.”
At the virtual town hall, Ryan addressed the frustration about what unfolded Saturday but said the response ultimately came down to safety.
“My colleagues and I have worked quite hard to build a level of trust with students, faculty, staff and members of the broader Charlottesville community,” said Ryan, who has led U-Va. since 2018. “I’m fully and painfully aware that we lost some of that trust on Saturday, and that it’s very difficult to regain trust.
“At the same time, as a president, I make decisions that I think are in the best interests of the entire community, not one segment of it. And that includes making decisions that others vehemently disagree with.”
Officials said the encampment violated a university policy that all tents require a preapproved permit.
On a public document outlining health and safety regulations, officials originally wrote that there was an exemption for “recreational tents.” But the language was deleted by Saturday morning.
The clash on Saturday came nearly seven years after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in which a self-professed neo-Nazi drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others.
On Tuesday, university officials said some decisions made over the weekend were partly an attempt to not repeat failures made at the fatal rally.
“I think in hindsight, some of the difficulties with 2017 was not reacting quickly enough,” Ryan said. “And so I was thinking that if we don’t act and we don’t move, and we just let this unfold, are we going to be faced tomorrow with not 22 tents, but 50 tents or 75 tents?”
Heinecke and other faculty members rejected the university’s claims that the demonstration posed a safety threat. The university’s AAUP chapter issued a letter Tuesday condemning the university’s decisions and calling for the legal and disciplinary actions taken against students to be reversed.
“From our own ample first-hand accounts, we find allegations that the demonstrators were unusually disruptive or a source of any danger to others unfounded,” the letter reads.
The Rev. Adam Lawrence Dyer, a religious studies doctoral student, was not a part of the encampment but said in an interview that he watched the police confrontation on Saturday and felt shocked by the events that played out. He said other students and departments have voiced their frustrations with the university’s response and want more answers.
“There was a decision at some point to perceive a threat,” he said. “But there was no actual threat.”
Heinecke said he spent the afternoon on Saturday checking in with students as they were being confronted by police. Since then, he and other faculty members have offered support to students who were jailed.
“All I cared about on Saturday was about the safety of our students,” he said.
