How some faculty members are defending student protesters, in actions and in words
Sarah Phillips was on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington for meetings Saturday when she saw social media posts calling for help protecting students' free speech rights.
When Phillips, an anthropology professor at IU, arrived at the site of the campus protest she recognized some of her students, "completely peaceful," standing face-to-face with what she described as heavily armed riot police. Reflexively, she started walking toward them.
"My instincts just kicked in," she told NPR on Monday. "And a few moments later, I found myself on the ground, handcuffed and being marched with some students and other faculty to a bus that was ready to take us away to the local jail."
The students were protesting at Dunn Meadow, a university-designated assembly area since 1969 and the site of an encampment that the school administration banned in a widely criticized last-minute policy change.
A few days earlier, on Thursday, Indiana state and university police had arrested 33 people as they tried to disperse the crowd. Protesters quickly regrouped, and Phillips was alarmed to hear on Saturday that armed police were once again gathering at the park.
She was one of four faculty members and 19 students arrested that day alone — among the hundreds of people who have been arrested at pro-Palestinian campus protests across the country in the last two weeks.
Demonstrators at Indiana, as
