Faculty Votes For Discipline Amnesty; President Says No Way

On Tuesday the Faculty Assembly approved a proposal demanding that the Emerson administration end “any and all disciplinary action”  related to protests, a rebuke of the college’s continuing crackdown on free speech.

The motion passed—with 96 full-time faculty in favor, 80 against, and 16 abstaining-—despite an eleventh-hour effort by the administration to undermine it, in part by vowing in advance to ignore the results of the vote.

“The college leadership has already clearly stated that these policies and conduct outcomes will not be changed,” read a four-page statement distributed by Provost Alexandra Socarides just hours before the Faculty Assembly convened on Zoom. ”Passing this motion will add to the division between the faculty and the administration.”

College President Jay Bernhardt doubled down on that message the following day. “No changes will be made to any policies or disciplinary actions resulting from this vote,” he wrote Wednesday in a letter to the Faculty Council.  “Disciplinary procedures and conduct findings fall outside the Assembly’s authority.”

The provost’s assertion that the faculty was creating the divisions on campus drew rebukes during the assembly meeting. “That's just a gross mischaracterization of what's happening here,” said a faculty member from the Institute. “The division comes from the upper administration’s behavior last year. That division has not gone away.”

The provost’s statement was a direct response to an email sent to fellow faculty members on Monday by journalism professor Douglas Struck, who put forth the proposal in last month’s assembly meeting. In the email, he listed specific disciplinary actions brought by the college. Socarides countered that students were arrested or disciplined for violating policies, claiming, for example, that Struck’s assertion that “[f]aculty and staff have been told… they can be disciplined for their activities on their own time” is “out of context.” She wrote, “No one can be disciplined for activities on their own time unless they directly violate a policy.”

At the faculty meeting, a School of the Arts professor contended that “our students were not arrested because they were peacefully protesting. They were arrested because they broke the law…. When you disobey police, there's usually consequences, and usually they're not pleasant consequences.… I think it's imperative that students learn how to take responsibility for their actions.”

Julia Glass, a senior writer in residence in WLP, urged colleagues to make Emerson  “a place where tolerance, trust, and forgiveness are core values.”  She said, “We are living in a moment that calls for courageous resistance. Our students need to learn that speaking out forcefully for our most worthy ideals is essential to democracy.”

The motion approved by the assembly called for an end “to any and all disciplinary action related to protests, demonstrations, leafleting and expressions of opinion, by anyone not directly responsible for bodily violence or substantial property damage. This includes a halt to disciplinary probation against students, campus bans on alumni, supervisor or administrative warnings and letters to staff and faculty, and OEO complaints stemming from such free speech activities. All evidence of above will be removed from the records of students, staff and faculty, and all ongoing proceedings stopped. "