WUPD and St. Louis County police arrested over 100 people during the April 27 encampment. (Alan Zhou | Student Life)

Last September, after April protests that resulted in over 100 arrests, the WashU board of trustees established an ad hoc committee to review the administration’s response to the protests. The committee’s findings and recommendations for how the administration should proceed were published in a final report early this morning.

The committee determined that overall, the University’s response to the protests was appropriate given the policies in place at the time. The ad hoc group was composed of nine WashU board members, and led by Trustee and Associate Judge of the United States Court of Military Commission Review William B. Pollard III. 

The group consulted the Faculty Senate Council (FSC) and interviewed 24 members of the WashU community including 15 students, one faculty member, and several administrators, for feedback.

The singular faculty member who testified to the committee about their participation in the April 27 protest is quoted on Page 13 of the report saying that they did not expect tents to be brought to the demonstration. 

Professor of art history and archeology, Angela Miller, who was suspended for participating in the April 27 protest, but who was not arrested at it, said that many of the faculty disciplined by the university following the demonstration refused to testify to the ad hoc committee because the investigation was not faculty-led. 

The report states on Page 27 that the committee will make 11 recommendations, 1-4 of which are policy recommendations while the other 5-11 are management related. However, the report only provides the first nine policy recommendations on Pages 28-31, and ends on Page 31. One such recommendation provided by the committee was that the University’s demonstration policies should be more centrally located and more easily accessible. 

As a featured speaker at the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) summit in New York City earlier this month, Chancellor Andrew Martin explained how a 2019 encampment led WashU to develop a formalized anti-encampment policy.

“We made the decision that if an encampment was going to come onto our campus, we wouldn’t allow it to do so,” Martin said. “I think we [had] some opportunities to have perhaps publicized it a little bit better, but we had this policy, and we made it very clear to folks.”

Organizers set up the April 27 encampment on the East End of campus. (Alan Zhou | Student Life)

In addition to publicity issues, the committee identified problems with communication between governing bodies on campus and a lack of clarity about chain of command. 

For example, the committee noted that at the April 13 protest, Chancellor Martin was out of town and unreachable by cell phone. It was unclear who had authority aside from Martin to authorize the arrests of students; however, a variety of administrators ended up giving the go-ahead to make the arrests.

At the protest on April 27, there was confusion between WUPD and the Demonstrations and Disruptions Team (D&D), a group tasked with handling disruptions prior to WUPD involvement. While WUPD deemed that the protests were non-violent, D&D had felt intimidated by the crowd, and arrests were later made as a result of this and the protestors’ violations of the anti-encampment policy.

Chief of WUPD Angela Coonce coordinating the police response to the April 27 encampment. (Alan Zhou | Student Life)

As a solution to this issue, the ad hoc committee suggested that the University create an Emergency Response Team (ERT) that will be “responsible for advising the Chancellor and managing the administration’s response to an unreasonably disruptive or violent protest on campus.”

In regard to the over 100 arrests carried out by various police departments on April 27, the committee noted on Page 25 that it was not within their jurisdiction to “adjudicate any disputed facts regarding the manner in which WUPD and supporting police departments executed some of the arrests made on April 27.”

After speaking with various students, faculty, and staff who did not witness or participate in the protests, the committee found that many supported the administration’s response on April 27. 

“Many believed an unprecedented number of protestors had no relationship with the University and further believed that the protestors came with ill intent,” reads Page 19 of the report. “[The committee] also pointed out that the unaffiliated protestors far outnumbered WUPD and prevented WashU students from studying during the critical week before finals.”

Another major issue that the committee identified was how to regulate on-campus demonstrations when the majority of protesters are not WashU students. 

Following the establishment of the ad hoc committee last fall, many WashU community members expressed concerns that the committee would recommend the termination of the open campus policy. However, the committee did not come to a resolution on the policy and called upon the administration, FSC leadership, and students to discuss it further. 

“The entire WashU community has a shared responsibility to contribute their views regarding this matter,” reads Page 27 of the report. 

This community includes the Faculty Senate—consisting of all the University’s faculty and overseen by select faculty members on the FSC—which voted in favor of a resolution to establish a faculty-led committee to investigate the University’s response. In spite of this support, the chair of the Board of Trustees Andrew Bursky overruled the recommendation.

“A parallel investigation conducted by the Faulty Senate or any other University entity would be counterproductive and inconsistent with our shared objective of seeking clarity [and] understand[ing],” Bursky wrote in an email to the FSC. 

According to Gwendolyn Randolph, FSC’s current secretary, the FSC was presented with the report and was allowed to ask questions about it, but they did not have a direct role in the investigation.

“We felt respected in this process and that our viewpoints were heard,” Randolph wrote in an email to Student Life.

Chair of the FSC Dennis Barbour said that there was a lack of general consensus among faculty members about how the protests should be dealt with, both last year and now.

“It was extremely challenging to lead the faculty during this time because of fundamental disagreements among them on the topic of the protests,” he wrote in an email to Student Life.

Barbour said that one of the council’s main concerns was how students suspended at the protests would fare after the fact.  

“The FSC [relayed] this concern to the committee, and I was gratified to see that the committee inquired into and reported on the support provided to students who were suspended from campus,” he wrote.

In the report, the committee recommended that the University “develop and publish a protocol for a more expedited review” when it comes to barring students from campus. They felt that it was not their place to comment on the University’s criteria for suspension. 

“Those policies, [including] the decision to suspend a student and the nature of that suspension are within the province of the administration,” reads Page 26 of the report. “The committee, however, does find that Dr. Gonzalez and her staff acted in good faith in the decision that they made in barring the suspended students from campus.”

While he felt that the committee listened to the FSC’s perspective and took their suggestions seriously, Barbour still felt that the recommendations in the report could have been more actionable.

“I would have liked to have seen more concrete recommendations, but I understand that the Board committee feels that the administration, faculty, staff and students should come together for that purpose,” he wrote. “My expectation is that a task force will be assembled soon to start this process. I would encourage anyone from our campus community, especially faculty, to participate in this process if invited to do so.”