Excerpts from “Robinson-Edley
Report”
…We have divided our recommendations into the following nine
thematic categories:
1. Civil Disobedience
Challenges. Although the University
already has policies regarding free expression, we recommend that it amend
those policies in order to recognize explicitly the important and historic role
of civil disobedience as a protest tactic.
Such a discussion will remind administrators and police that civil disobedience
is not generally something to be feared and will not necessarily require force
in response. Those policies should also
make clear, however, that civil disobedience by definition involves violating
laws or regulations, and that because of the impact it can have on the rest of the
campus community, civil disobedience will generally have consequences for those
engaging in it.
2. Relationship
Building. Protests are an inevitable
reality for any modern university. But
some protests can be avoided if there are effective lines of communication
between would-be protesters and administrative officials and robust
opportunities to raise substantive concerns with the Administration and to
obtain a meaningful response. The
University’s response to protests can also be handled better and more
efficiently by building strong working relationships between police officials
and administrators.
Interactions between protesters and police in the midst of a
demonstration will be less fraught if these groups have an opportunity to
interact and learn about each other before the demonstration. We recommend ways to build each of these
relationships in advance of protests or civil disobedience.
3. Role Definition
and Coordination. In order to ensure
an effective University response to protests involving civil disobedience,
there must be an established system for coordination between police and administrators,
with well-defined roles and a shared understanding that ultimate responsibility
for the campus’s response rests with the Chancellor. We offer recommendations aimed at improving
the coordination between administrators and police and at implementing a
consistent approach across our campuses.
We also advance recommendations regarding coordinating with outside law
enforcement agencies who may provide assistance during large demonstrations.
4. Hiring and
Training. The most effective way to
avoid violent confrontations between police and protesters is to ensure that
the police and administrators on the ground have the knowledge and the
temperament to help resolve the situation in a peaceful way. We advance recommendations regarding our
policies for hiring police officers and for training them about how to respond
to civil disobedience. We also recommend
that the University require the civilian administrators responsible for
responding to civil disobedience to attend regular trainings, in order to
educate them about methods to de-escalate protest situations and to help them
understand police policies and practices.
5. Communications
with Protesters. Violent
confrontations between police and protesters often result from a break-down in
communications. With strong
communications, civil disobedience can sometimes be avoided—or, at least, can
take place peacefully without any use of force by police. We offer recommendations regarding
communication and coordination with protesters in advance of a planned event,
as well as during an ongoing demonstration.
6. Response During
Events. Once a protest is underway
and individual protesters begin to engage in civil disobedience, the decisions
made by administrators can directly affect whether the protest ends peacefully rather
than with violence. We propose various
strategies for reaching a peaceful accord with protesters without resorting to
the use of force by police, including employing trained mediators and using administrative
citations in place of arrests. We also
recommend policies to guide our campus police departments if the Administration
decides that a police response to the protest is necessary. These include developing a framework to
provide detailed guidance on appropriate responses to different types of resistance,
adopting consistent policies across our campuses regarding which weapons may be
carried by UC police, and devising procedures for improving coordination with
outside law enforcement agencies if they are needed to provide assistance.
7. Documenting
Activity During Demonstrations. A
consistent problem in the area of police response to civil disobedience is
determining, after the fact, what actually happened. We recommend several parallel methods for
recording the actions of demonstrators and police: the use of neutral
observers, a policy of videotaping activity at the demonstration, and the
creation of police after-action reports following both successful and
unsuccessful police responses to demonstrations.
8. Post-Event Review. In the wake of any civil disobedience
incident involving the use of force, the conduct of the police and the
protesters should be the subject of a close and careful review. Although one of our campuses has a dedicated
police review board composed of civilians, the other campuses do not have any established
form of post-event review outside of the police department. We recommend that the University adopt a
systemwide structure located outside of the police department for reviewing the
police response to civil disobedience.
9. Implementation. Finally, we suggest a process for
implementing the recommendations in this Report. Most centrally, we propose that the President
require each Chancellor to take concrete action to implement our
recommendations, and to report promptly to the President on his or her progress.
- - -
…Mediation
(a) Background
At the Town Hall meetings we conducted, several people
suggested that our campuses should train mediators who could facilitate
discussion between protesters and the Administration during civil disobedience
events. These mediators might be faculty members or staff, or
mediation experts from outside the University. Students said that the
Administration’s “first response should not be ‘let’s call the police
department,” and that a mediation approach would offer the Administration a
helpful alternative. Several pointed to
instances when faculty members had helpfully facilitated communications between
student protesters and the Administration. Regarding one of these instances, a
student reported: “I saw a hand reaching out from the faculty. I see that as one of the ways where we can
make progress.”
(b) Recommendation
We agree with students and faculty who urged that a formal
mediation program be established. In
many instances, the interaction between protesters and administrators would
benefit from the presence of a trained mediator, who could help both sides
arrive at feasible solutions. We think
it would be preferable to train staff or faculty volunteers to perform this
function, rather than to rely on mediators from outside the University.
Mediators internally recruited and trained would be familiar
with the University and would require little advance preparation to get up to
speed on most issues prompting a demonstration. Additionally, mediators may be needed
on short notice; it would be helpful to have them readily available on campus,
rather than relying on external mediators with potentially conflicting
commitments. We therefore recommend that
campuses either develop their own team of mediators or join with other campuses
in their region to do so.
Recommendation 32. Establish an internal mediation function
at the campus or regional level to assist in resolving issues likely to trigger
protests or civil disobedience.
Recommendation 33. Consider deploying this mediation
function as an alternative to force, before and during a protest event. …
- - -
Full report at http://campusprotestreport.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/Robinson-Edley-Report-043012.pdf
UPDATE: The UC-Davis chancellor was censured by the Davis Academic Senate regarding the pepper-spray incident.
See http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/05/4467630/uc-davis-chancellor-censured-over.html
UPDATE: The UC-Davis chancellor was censured by the Davis Academic Senate regarding the pepper-spray incident.
See http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/05/4467630/uc-davis-chancellor-censured-over.html
2 comments:
Pepper spray is one of the best non-lethal weapons you can use for crowd control especially if you have a probelm on a college campus. Great article.
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