Tears were shed, tensions were high and the conversation about the “Freedom of Expression” policy continued as students, faculty and community members gathered at the Athena Cinema on Thursday night for Constitution Day.
Although Ohio University’s Constitution Day lecture was originally intended to focus on police brutality, the evening’s speaker, Naomi Murakawa, took a different route, rewriting her talk as an open letter to the “Baker 70.”
“I want to start by thanking you for standing up to the forces of racial criminalization that dominate our times,” Murakawa said. “In demanding that Ohio University become a sanctuary campus, you tried to disentangle the university from one of the most pernicious and powerful institutions of criminalization — immigration and customs enforcement.”
Murakawa, an associate professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, was referring to the arrest of 70 students during a February demonstration in which students called for the university to be declared a sanctuary campus.
The lecture largely dealt with the university’s interim “Freedom of Expression” policy. Despite the policy’s stated purpose to “promote the free exchange of ideas,” its restrictions on the use of university space have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, prompting the university to initiate a revision process.
The policy currently prohibits “demonstrations, rallies, public speech-making, picketing, sit-ins, marches, protests, and similar assemblies” inside university buildings.
Murakawa said the “unnecessary” and “overbroad” policy deserves the disapproval it has received.
“I know it might not feel like it, but the fact that the university had to pull this kind of nonsense over the summer — that’s actually a sign of something amazing,” Murakawa said. “By working collectively, by organizing, … by standing up for what’s right rather than what’s expedient, someone worried that you might win.”
Jolana Oraza, who was arrested during the February demonstration, said Murakawa’s talk was something she “really needed to hear.”
“I really want to thank you for everything that you said,” Oraza said. “It means a lot to me, and I promise you all 70 feel the same that someone as distinguished and as great as you understands where we come from.”
Oraza was also present for a 2014 demonstration that took place in Baker Center following a jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. During the 2014 demonstration, Baker Center was kept open after hours — a decision Judge Todd Grace later said delegated the building as a designated public forum.
The 2014 demonstration, Oraza said, was “completely different” than what happened in 2017.
“We didn’t have demands. We were mad. We were upset because black people were dying,” Oraza said. “In the moment, it was very spontaneous. And I think the reason why the administrators talked to us is because we were black.”
Maeve Kroeger, a senior studying media and social change, said the recent events have encouraged her to get involved in campus activism.
“I think up until today, actually, I was feeling really discouraged about having a ... pretty much spot-on sense as you. And it’s very, very extremely refreshing,” Kroeger told Murakawa. “I’m actually paying attention to things and going to meetings and sitting next to men in suits and saying ‘Hey, I have an opinion too. And it matters.’”
Athens City Council member and defense attorney Pat McGee, I-At Large, said the conversation was not about free speech, but the distribution of wealth and power in the United States.
“Often the free speech at this university is a matter where people are concerned with the ramblings of semi-lucid ministers and preachers who are busy condemning us all to hell,” McGee said. “I think I read your letter to us all as advocating … that we stand up and deal with the real issues.”
Murakawa echoed McGee’s sentiments, adding that the conversation should center on the university’s divestment from the criminal justice system. After responding to a series of questions from the audience, she acknowledged that the situation could seem “a little bleak,” but encouraged students to continue organizing.
“The only thing that ever does (organize people) is what happened here,” Murakawa said. “It’s when small groups of people start small, work together … they have brilliant ideas, and they stick to them.”
