How colleges decide when to call in police to break up campus protests

Frederick Lawrence, Distinguished Lecturer, Georgetown Law Center:

I think, on some campuses, law enforcement are being invited on too fast.

Law enforcement is available, but that should always be a last resort. You always want to try to address these problems and these situations within the university family, if you possibly can. That means faculty, that means staff, and that means public safety at universities.

In many campuses like mine, my public safety officers were deputized officers. But, still, we didn't go off campus unless you absolutely had to. So I'm not suggesting that it never happens. I just think that can't be where you start.

Amna Nawaz:

Ed, how do you look at how this is unfolded? Do you agree with that, that, in some cases, police are being called in too quickly?

Ed Davis, Former Boston Police Commissioner:

Well, I agree that the police should be a last resort in these situations.

But we have seen some pretty outrageous behavior in some of these encampments. And so it certainly is up to the college president to make the call. The question is, when does the behavior go beyond free speech and start to infringe on other people's rights?

When that happens, the campus police are ill-suited to do what needs to be done with these life protests simply because of staffing. They're very professional, they're very well trained, they know what they're doing, but they need more people.

Amna Nawaz:

Fred, what is that last resort line for you these days? Is it them blocking access to university buildings, violence of some kind?

Frederick Lawrence:

Well, there are two different issues here.

I think Ed's quite right that there's a point when you cross over from free speech into activity that can be precluded. That's blocking access to buildings, that's occupying buildings, that's disrupting the orderly operation of the institution, as well as actually engaging in threatening behavior, violent behavior.

So, when you do cross over that line, then speech can be restricted. It doesn't necessarily mean that you immediately reach to law enforcement. There are certain situations where you can or must. Part of this too is that, by the time it comes to that, there probably were already opportunities in the past that were not taken.

So, even now, as hard as it is at this moment, we should be thinking about, what are the lessons learned and how can we get this better next time?

Amna Nawaz:

Opportunities in the past like what? What do you mean by that?

Frederick Lawrence:

The real training for these things, the real preparation for these events takes place weeks, months, sometimes years in advance.

On my own campus at Brandeis, the presidents of the student government and I had a very close working relationship, so that by the time something like this happened, it's a little late to say, hi, I'm President Lawrence, I'm sorry we haven't met.

You have to have a trust relationship and a working relationship. That's not going to solve all your problems, but it's actually going to solve a surprising number.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Ed, once police are called in, once that line has been crossed, walk us through the protocol in these situations. I mean, should there be sort of an assumption, because they are there to disband a group or to remove an encampment, that there will be some kind of use of force?

Ed Davis:

Not necessarily.

I think, in our own backyard recently at Northeastern, we saw a very controlled, very polite process of dismantling the encampment. The State Police were called in to assist the university police there. And I think the important difference was that the students and the protesters there had made a decision to be arrested and to go peacefully.

And so, if you encounter no resistance — and I have done this before — protest groups have said: We want to be arrested.

So we do that. And it's a very civil orderly process. The problem comes when there's a number of the individuals involved who have other ideas or other objectives. The mayor of New York mentioned this today, people from outside the university. And I totally agree that the prior conversations with university students and personnel does make all the difference.

You can't make a relationship in a crisis. So if you have a good relationship and you're talking to the students, that's fine. The unknown factor here is the other individuals who are coming in. Some are anarchists. Some have other objectives. You can't negotiate with people that want to fight.

Amna Nawaz:

Ed, tell me more about that, because we did hear Mayor Adams specifically call out outside agitators.

We have seen law enforcement leaders, national security leaders in this country saying that there could be more involvement of these kind of actors in political protests and gatherings of this sort. How worried are you about their involvement in these protests and what that means for the future?

Ed Davis:

Well, it changes the whole formula in dealing with it. And we track these groups all the time.

I have been dealing with them since Occupy Boston many years ago. And the bottom line is, they're organized. They're dangerous. They have an agenda. And when they get inserted into the mix, it changes the whole formula of prior relationships and being able to speak logically with people. This is really about having a moment in the sun, having the fight occur and being in the middle of it.

Amna Nawaz:

Fred, how do outside agitators infiltrating these campus protests, how does that change the equation for university officials?

Frederick Lawrence:

It means that we have to find ways of figuring out who is and who's not. Ed's quite right. When you have outside people, it does change the equation.

First of all, I would just add that we have got to be very careful about loosely talking about outside agitators. That's long been an explanation for repressing demonstrations. I'm not suggesting that's what's happening here. It just — I think once you approach it with some level of skepticism.

What do you do with the concern with that? Campuses that have fences around them that have swipe card entry, you put them in lock mode, so that a student has to have an I.D. to let somebody in. Obviously, a student could let somebody in, but now you have made it much harder to do that.

In situations where there are sort of soft versions of arrests, even by campus security, and where somebody shows a student I.D. card and they're immediately released, they don't show a student I.D. card, then they get taken into detention, that's another way of dealing with that.

But, again, if you have the relationships with the students — look at example like Northwestern University, like Brown, where they actually sat down and worked out deals with those students. I'm sure part of those discussions was, we're talking to you. We will do a deal with you.

You bring in people from the outside, all bets are off. And to a large extent, these student groups will hear that.

Amna Nawaz:

Ed, do you see these protests slowing down or winding down any time soon?

Ed Davis:

I think a lot of it depends on international events.

I think the situation in the Middle East, if there's a cease-fire there and some type of moderation of the hostilities, I think this could calm down. However, this is an election year. And that's going to be weighed in the process.

So, we will see what happens. We have got to get through graduation. In the summertime, when there aren't as many people on campus, the focus of these protests may move somewhere, but a lot depends on what happens in Gaza.

Amna Nawaz:

That is Ed Davis, former commissioner of the Boston Police Department, and Frederick Lawrence from Georgetown University Law Center, former president of Brandeis University.

Thank you, gentlemen, to you both. We appreciate your time.

Frederick Lawrence:

Good being with you.