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Silenced Spaces: The Fight for Free Speech and Open Dialogue at Dunn Meadow
IU administration fails to hear the frustrations of pro-Palestine faculty and students amid Dunn Meadow closure.
Brookelyn Lambright and Leo Paes
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It’s never been easy to be Palestinian, according to Sarah Alhaddad, a Palestinian undergraduate student at Indiana University-Bloomington. For as long as Alhaddad can remember, she has been advocating for greater Palestinian rights in Israel.
“This is an issue that I have been talking about for as long as I can remember, as long as I’ve ever had consciousness,” Alhaddad said. “My parents have told me about the Palestinian cause and what that means to be Palestinian in America.”
Alhaddad was involved with the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) and its encampment on Dunn Meadow in April. Now, nearly seven months later, students and faculty involved in the encampment say their voices are being silenced by the IU administration.
“I think it is pretty crazy that they [IU] single-handedly removed the designated free speech zone on our campus,” Alhaddad said. “Therefore stifling free speech as a whole.”
PSC’s encampment was torn down on Aug. 2 with the University saying it needed to conduct “extensive repairs” on Dunn Meadow, according to a press release from IU administration. In the process, IU fenced off Dunn Meadow, making it inaccessible to anyone on campus.
Alhaddad said that students tending to the encampment over the summer were careful of the lawn and moved tents to make sure no grass was damaged.
“We would constantly be rearranging our layout in order to give the grass a break because it is not meant to sustain something like this,” Alhaddad said.
IU’s new Expressive Policy recognized Dunn Meadow as an “area in which Indiana University Community Members may engage in freedom of expression.”
While the University says they plan to open the area by the end of the semester, lawn care experts at Wells Lawn Care and Landscaping say resodding projects should only take two to four weeks to complete. Dunn Meadow has been closed for the past 16 weeks.
In light of IU’s dealings with the encampment and their new Expressive Policy, Barbara Dennis, an IU professor, has already given the university her letter of resignation. She says how IU handled the Dunn Meadow encampment was extremely disappointing.
“I think the use of threat and force by this administration is unconscionable,” Dennis said. “It absolutely works against the idea of dialogue across differences.”
IU administration called state troopers to campus during the protests in April leading to the arrest of more than 50 students, faculty, and community members in five days.
Since 2001, Dennis has worked as a professor at IU. In that time she’s participated in multiple protests in Dunn Meadow. None however have required the University to call state troopers. Dennis says this has to do with the administration and how it’s chosen to tackle free speech.
“I’ve participated in a lot of protests on this campus. I have not encountered this type of violent response to a peaceful protest,” Dennis said.
Students and faculty involved in the Dunn Meadow encampment are frustrated with the way IU chose to handle their protests. They say this is just one example of how IU has silenced their voices on campus.
“What we’ve seen is that there has been no desire to talk to us or have a conversation with us to even figure out our demands, even figure out how we can compromise,” Alhaddad said. “Overall, it’s just a lack of respect. It’s neglect.”
Now, with the closure of Dunn Meadow and IU’s Expressive Policy, students and faculty wishing to protest against the University say they feel threatened.
“Part of how they [protests] work is to disrupt the ongoing everyday activity of institutions, and they have to be able to do that to function as a protest,” Dennis said. “But the administration’s response to disruption has never been this threatening and this severe.”
Mark Bode, director of media relations for IU said they are working to ensure Dunn Meadow “develops and holds properly.” IU did not provide a statement to WFHB regarding this story.
