Punished for Leafleting on a Public Sidewalk

Emerson has put four students on College Probation for leafleting on a public sidewalk. The action that resulted in probation took place on March 7 in front of the Paramount Center building, where the students distributed what they describe as educational material about Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. Meir was the subject of the play Golda’s Balcony, then playing at the Paramount. Three students involved in the action were put on probation for one semester. The fourth student is on probation for the entire 2024-25 academic year.

The original disciplinary charges included disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior; failure to comply with directions of college officials; false identification or information; misuse of the name, image, likeness, or creative work of another person or entity; vandalism and property damage. Later, the charge of vandalism was replaced with violation of the college’s posting policy.

None of these charges conforms with the students’ accounts of the events. According to them, they were handing out leaflets on the sidewalk when an ECPD officer approached them. “We were told we had to move away from the building,” recalled one of the students involved in the action, who asked not to be identified. The students complied with the order and moved down the street, where they continued leafleting.

The same officer then returned and confiscated their material. At no moment were the students inside the Paramount Center building. ECPD reported that they were leaning against the doors of the building, but surveillance footage of the action failed to corroborate the report. “The administration told us they didn’t need definitive evidence in order to penalize us,” continued the student. “They didn’t need to be 100% sure.”

According to its own Findings & Sanctions webpage, Emerson relies on a “preponderance of the evidence standard” to determine responsibility for any alleged violation of its policies. It defines preponderance of evidence simply as “more likely than not” based solely on their own assessment.

Although the original charges were issued on March 20, the administration waited until the summer, when most students and faculty were away from campus, to put the students on probation. On July 21, more than four months after the action outside the Paramount, the students were called for administrative hearings, in which they met with a member of the Office of Community Standards, allegedly to investigate the reported incident and come to a resolution. For some, the outcome of the hearings looked like a foregone conclusion. “The hearings were not designed to give students an opportunity to defend themselves. The goal was not to determine what happened in front of the Paramount but to extract information about how we organize and how we communicate with each other,” explained a second student put on probation.

“I was able to expose incongruities in the charges or prove them entirely false, but nothing changed the outcome.”

Putting students on College Probation impacts their lives in multiple ways. Probation puts them on notice that further discipline can result in suspension or expulsion. Employers at Emerson run background checks on students and can refuse work-study jobs to those on probation. This usually makes them ineligible to serve as RA’s and orientation leaders, and from participating in programs at ELA or Kasteel Well. Probation can also have visa implications for international students and affect financial aid for lower income students. Ultimately, it has a chilling effect, discouraging community members from organizing and inhibiting political discourse on campus.