Chancellor Andrew Martin addresses Student Union as part of an unprecedented Q&A. (Sam Powers | Student Life)

In a joint session on Tuesday, Sept. 10, Chancellor Andrew Martin addressed Student Union Senate and Treasury in a rare Q&A, expressing gratitude to the student leaders and fielding questions regarding campus protests, encampments, and concerns with Title IX policies from various Senators. 

Notably, Martin expressed willingness to discuss current policies that ban encampments on campus, refuted allegations of police violence on April 27, and stood firm on his stance that protesters crossed a line.  

Student Union (SU) is the undergraduate student government for WashU, serving as a conduit to bring forward issues voiced by students to administrators. Though Martin said that administrators heavily rely on SU “to understand the evolving needs and concerns of our student body,” this is the first time that he has ever attended and addressed SU during a joint session during his six years at WashU.

After Chancellor Martin delivered his opening remarks, SU transitioned to a Q&A, where the primary focus was the University’s use of law enforcement in response to protests last year — specifically those on April 13, 20, and 27 — and the University’s stance on divesting from Boeing. 

Sophomore senator Saara Engineer broached this topic first, asking the chancellor if he regrets the way the University responded to the April 27 encampment, and if he will respond differently in the future. Martin prefaced his response by saying that he never wants to have a situation where law enforcement is necessary. 

“Is that what I wanted to happen in this situation? Is that what the administration wanted to happen in this situation? Absolutely not,” Martin said. 

Martin then pointed out that WashU has had a no-encampment policy for over five years, arguing that therefore when community members attempted to set up an encampment on campus, it was well within the administration’s right to arrest them. 

He added that the encampment would have been shut down regardless of its content based on the rules as they exist, but that during this academic year, there will be an opportunity to engage the campus community in a conversation about those policies.  

“We may have a conversation and decide that we want to allow encampment as a form of advocacy on our campus, that’s a collective discussion that we could have, we’ll weigh the costs and benefits and ultimately make a determination,” he said.  

In Engineer’s question, she specifically asked if the University would choose to respond differently to protests in the future “given that a professor was almost killed” on April 27, and Martin addressed that comment in his answer. 

“The final thing that you noted, which I will take issue with, has to do with…many accusations swirling around the policing that took place on the campus in the East End [on April 27],” Martin said. “To assert that there was police brutality, or that those individuals, I think the language that you used was to ‘beat someone close to death,’ simply isn’t true, and that’s not what occurred.” 

Sophomore and senator Emaan Sayied noted that when the Washington University Graduate Workers’ Union set up an encampment in 2019 in Brookings Quadrangle, it wasn’t met with the same response. 

The administration did not involve outside law enforcement for the 2019 protest, and instead, the Washington University Police Department was involved, leading to eight arrests. Sayied asked how WashU can be “in St. Louis, for St. Louis” if community members coming to the University run the risk of altercations with law enforcement.  

“I made it central to my administration that we are committed to the city of St. Louis,” answered Martin. “But, there’s a line that they can’t cross.” 

Further, junior and senator Natalia Leon-Diaz asked if the University will be divesting from Boeing, after an SU resolution, which passed in March and concerned Boeing’s involvement in the sales of arms to Israel that are reportedly linked to civilian casualties in Gaza, failed to elicit any response from the administration. 

“We’ve made an institutional decision that it is our fiduciary responsibility to manage the endowment to maximize our return,” said Martin, asserting that the University chooses to invest where it believes it will make the most money, not accounting for positive or negative screens in the endowment. 

He noted that the return is what funds scholarships and professors, and supports buildings, patient care, and more, hence the University’s desire to invest looking to get the maximum profit. 

Junior and senator Sonal Churiwal also asked Martin about relationship and sexual violence on campus, raising concerns about students from immigrant backgrounds not reporting incidents due to language barriers and cultural misunderstandings. 

“Seeing as WashU has a 12.5% Latina student population, 20% Asian, and 9.5% Black” Churiwal stated,  “Why are these demographics not appropriately represented in resources in the RSVP Center, and what steps can you take towards working on this?”  

Martin responded by saying that he believes it is incredibly important that the University invests significant effort into the issue of sexual violence prevention. During the 2017-18 academic year, improvements to the Title IX processes were made in what Martin described as “one of the great moments of student activism at Washington University.” 

In terms of further improvement, Martin said he is open to discussing ways to better the process.

“I’ve had at least a half dozen meetings in the last five years with groups of students who brought concerns [about Title IX] to the table, and we’ve been able to make some changes at the margin,” Martin said. “At the same time, we have some legal obligations with the Title IX office that makes some of the suggestions that have come from student groups and others simply impossible.”

Sophomore and senator Matthew Broome also asked Martin about construction on campus, and he responded saying that there are multiple construction projects in the works.

“We’ll be breaking ground in about a month for the new Arts & Sciences building to the west of Olin Library,” Martin said. “We’re basically going to shave off a third of Mudd Field, [which], if you look at it from above, is huge, actually oversized for a quad. What will remain will still be big enough for a soccer pitch.” 

He went on to say that it will take two years to build and will open thereafter. 

“If you’re a first-year, it should open your senior year,” he said. “If you’re not, sorry about the construction.”

After Martin concluded the Q&A and left the joint session, Dean of Students Rob Wild addressed SU, saying that he appreciated that they didn’t “pull any punches” with their questions. 

The floor was opened for a few questions for Wild from the room, and graduate student and audience member Han Koehle asked about whether Martin had seen video of the arrests that occurred on April 27.

“Do you think that it’s plausible that he actually hasn’t seen the videos of what happened?” they asked. “The beatings, the Palestinian hangings, it’s on camera, it happened.”

Wild responded by saying that he believes that the Chancellor has seen videos of the protest and the arrests that followed. 

After the joint session, Koehle told Student Life in a follow-up that they were referring to photos and videos of the protest where they saw what police carry out what they believed to be a “torture technique where people are suspended by their arms with their arms behind their backs.” 

Churiwal also asked Wild about a recent story published in The Source that stated that WashU is reconsidering its open campus policy. The article states that the Board of Trustees is forming an ad hoc committee to “review policies, procedures on maintaining an open campus.” 

“I’m just curious about that because I know that the encampment was partially organized by students,” she said. “I don’t really understand how we can be for St. Louis if St. Louisans aren’t allowed to step foot onto our campus.” 

Wild responded by saying that, though he had not seen that article, he would be devastated if WashU changed their open campus policies. 

“If that were to happen, I hope this body would weigh in on that,” Wild said. “I also want to say that I have listened to the Chancellor over the last few months, but that was the first time I’ve heard him talk about being willing to consider changes to campus encampment policies.”