Raleigh, NC—On Monday, Martin Center president Jenna Robinson signed a letter “Supporting Free Speech & UNC Leadership.”
The letter was written by faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill but is open for anyone to sign. It reads, in part:
Recent campus protests have tested our university community as it seeks the proper balance between freedom of expression and the right to protest versus the need for the university to function and protect the safety, rights, and freedoms of all UNC community members. UNC leadership took great pains to allow protesters to share their message. However, the protesters’ actions violated the law and University policy, including removal of the American flag from University property.
We strongly support free speech. But free speech has limits, including reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. Additionally, conduct that violates the law is not protected. These rules must be followed so that the University can be a place where everyone can go about teaching, learning, and exercising their own free speech rights, without interruption, interference, or intimidation. Importantly, all policies and laws must be applied uniformly to all actors, without prejudice and without regard to the strength of convictions.
The letter comes in response to an ongoing pro-Hamas encampment and protest on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus that has violated several of the university’s rules regarding free speech and campus facilities use.
“Free speech is essential, especially on college campuses,” said Robinson. “But protestors’ actions at UNC last week crossed several lines. I fully support Interim Chancellor Roberts’s decision to restore order on campus, as well as Provost Clemens’s pledge to ‘support sanctions’ for professors who refuse to submit final grades as a protest action.”
The full letter can be found here.