CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Several dozen University of Virginia history professors have signed an open letter condemning how police handled the pro-Palestinian protest on Saturday, May 4, 2024, calling it the “repression of a peaceful protest of our students by armed state police in riot gear.”

The group also takes great issue with UVA’s decision to change its campus rules on the “recreational tents.” Under UVA policy, all tents must receive final approval before being assembled on Grounds. The policy originally included a link to a document stating that “Recreational tents for camping are exempt” but it was quietly removed hours before police began making arrests.

The professors are also demanding an explanation of what happened and why state police in riot gear were deployed.

 

Open Letter Regarding the Events of May 4, 2024

With shock and dismay, we, the undersigned members of the University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History, condemn the repression of a peaceful protest of our students by armed state police in riot gear. Since the start of the protest on April 30, 2024, faculty, administrators, and students successfully worked together to ensure that the protest remained peaceful. We are thus stunned by the University’s unilateral eleventh-hour decision to change campus rules on the presence of “recreational tents” and mobilize the Virginia State Police on Saturday morning. In doing so, the UVa administration created the very conditions that it had worked to avoid–chaos, conflict, and violence. 

Whatever our divergent views about the cause for which the protestors were advocating, the virtues of inquiry and debate as well as the importance of critical questioning are fundamental to our mission as members of the University of Virginia faculty. As the University’s own Statement on Free Expression and Free Inquiry states, “the University of Virginia has a unique connection to principles of free expression and inquiry” through its historical ties to the architects of the First Amendment, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Yesterday, the University fell far short of the aspirations Jefferson articulated in his capacity as the University’s first Rector: “here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” The drastic move to end a peaceful protest with militarized police, rather than reason, put a swift end to any form of deliberation, debate, and democratic process. It violated our commitment as an educational institution to seek understanding and discourage mindless compliance. It has broken the trust upon which free inquiry and expression depend.

As educators, we ask what lessons we are teaching our students, and not just those in the encampment, about the importance of free speech and democratic civic culture when riot police are sent in to suppress a peaceful protest with violence. Many of us instruct our students on the long history of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience that have expanded the realm of democratic speech and practice around the world. Many of us also teach our students about the actions of governments throughout history to repress dissident speech and civil disobedience. We consider when and how those in power lose faith with those they serve.

As historians, we are acutely aware that this police action fell on the anniversary of the murder of four student protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. History has not judged those who ordered the violent repression of that protest kindly. History will also judge the University of Virginia’s actions on May 4, 2024 and we have no doubt that history will also condemn the disproportionate, draconian, and excessive use of force against non-violent protesters exercising their free speech rights on an academic campus founded by the author of the Declaration of Independence.

It is worth recalling the words and actions of former UVA president Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. following the killings at Kent State. Amidst student protests against the war in Vietnam, demands for increased enrollment of African-American students, and pressure to admit women on an equal basis with men, President Shannon met with protest leaders and then addressed students from the steps of the Rotunda. He applauded student protestors for expressing their views without coercing classmates who disagreed, reasserted UVA’s traditions of autonomy and self-governance, and condemned police action against students in terms that echo powerfully today. “I have a responsibility,” he declared, “to all faculty and students to see that, even in the most unusual circumstances, at a time of terrible national division, that the ability of everyone is maintained to express views, that those views can be protected to be heard, that they will not be interfered with or harassed.” The University now justly celebrates these actions, which spared our University much of the police violence and bloodshed that stained other campuses at the time. 

As members of the faculty, we must also ask: what was it that inspired such a calamitous decision? The explanations we have received so far are simply not credible. Where was President Ryan on Saturday, May 4, when  law enforcement agencies and riot police descended upon our university? Where were he and Provost Ian Baucom when our students, faculty, and staff were shoved, beaten, and pepper-sprayed and pushed off grounds at their own university? A belated email replete with platitudes, half-truths, and evasions does not meet the moment.  

The rights, freedoms, and safety of all UVA students and members of the University community require that the administration explain what specifically warranted this extreme response. Who made the decision to deploy the Virginia State Police in riot control gear? Why was it that UPD Chief Longo abandoned a plan that administration and faculty worked out, which included full communication, de-escalation options at every stage, and off-ramps for students who felt unsafe? Did anyone outside the university leadership, including but not limited to elected officials, political appointees, or donors, advocate for taking specific actions against protesters? It is our right as university faculty to know what specifically warranted such a response. Can it really be true that our UVa police cannot manage to work peacefully with student protestors? Is this what we can expect in the future? As we work to ensure our students’ safety and safeguard their rights, these questions demand answers.

Sincerely,

Manuela Achilles, Associate Professor of German and History and Director of European Studies

Fahad Ahmad Bishara, Associate Professor of History and Rouhollah Ramazani Professor of Arabian Peninsula and Gulf Studies

Emily Burrill, Associate Professor of History

Indrani Chatterjee, John L Nau III Distinguished Professor in the History and Principles of Democracy

Christa Dirksheide, Associate Professor of History and Jefferson Scholars Foundation Professor

Max Edelson, Professor of History

Corrine Field, Associate Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (affiliated faculty)

Kevin K. Gaines, Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice and Professor of History and African American Studies

Chris Gratien, Associate Professor of History

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Commonwealth Professor of History and American Studies 

Paul D. Halliday, Julian Bishko Professor History

Claudrena Harold, Professor of History

Justene Hill Edwards, Associate Professor of History

William I. Hitchcock, James Madison Professor of History

Janet Horne, Associate Professor of French (affiliated faculty)

Caroline E. Janney, John L. Nau III Professor of the American Civil War

Caroline Kahlenberg, [Visiting] Assistant Professor of History

Andrew Kahrl, Professor of History and African American Studies

Deborah Kang, Associate Professor of History and Nau Associate Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy

Paul Kershaw, Associate Professor of History

Thomas Klubock, Professor of History

Kyrill Kunakhovich, Assistant Professor of History 

Erin Lambert, Associate Professor of History 

Erik Linstrum, Associate Professor of History

Xiaoyuan Liu, Professor of History and David Dean 21st Century of Asian Studies 

John Edwin Mason, Associate Professor of History

Christian McMillen, Professor of History

Allan Megill, Professor of History

Sarah Milov, Associate Professor of History

Neeti Nair, Professor of History 

Brian Owensby, Professor of History

Bradly Reed, Associate Professor, Emeritus

Kristina Richardson, John L. Nau III Professor in the History and Principles of Democracy and Professor of History and Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages and Cultures

Joseph Seeley, Assistant Professor of History

Jennifer Sessions, Associate Professor of History

David Singerman, Assistant Professor of History and American Studies

Robert P. Stolz, Associate Professor of History

Lean Sweeney, Assistant Professor of History, General Faculty

Amir Syed, Assistant Professor of History 

Elizabeth R. Varon, Langbourne M. Williams Chair of American History 

Penny M. Von Eschen, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American Studies and Professor of History

Chad Wellmon, Associate Professor of History (affiliated faculty)

Joshua M. White, Associate Professor of History

Cong Zhang, Professor of History