Moving Our Campus Community Forward
May 8, 2024
Dear Campus Community,
Following Monday’s University Senate meeting, questions were raised about the decisions I made related to last week’s demonstration and I have taken time to reflect on that feedback. As president over the last four years, I have worked hard to build trust with faculty, staff, students, and our community. In this role, one often has to make hard decisions, like holding classes in person during COVID, with which some disagreed, and then you have to own them. When faced with those difficult decisions, I am guided by a set of principles bound by my concern for the well-being of our entire university community.
Monday’s University Senate meeting elicited a range of passionate perspectives. Open exchange is vital to our academic mission. I listened to all those perspectives and want to share with the rest of our community some of the key points shared with the Senate.
Last week’s demonstration on the Staller Steps presented a challenge: how to balance the protection of free expression for all community members while enforcing our policies and rules that are designed to ensure content-neutral protection of free speech and the safety of our campus. It was a complicated situation, rooted in an emotionally charged national context, with no clear answers. No president wants to have to contemplate arresting students. And we did everything we could to avoid that. At Monday’s meeting, Vice President for Student Affairs, Rick Gatteau, Vice President for Enterprise Risk Management, Lawrence Zacarese, and I shared a chronology of events and details including:
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The Staller Steps had been previously reserved by another group for a large event.
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We offered the demonstrators a prominent campus space where they could relocate their demonstration.
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External groups were posting their intentions to come to campus to intimidate members of our community.
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We offered the demonstrators a meeting with me and Justin Fincher, Executive Director of the Stony Brook Foundation.
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We reminded the demonstrators multiple times that they could leave the Staller Steps and move to the alternate location by 11pm without any negative action.
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We had already received numerous reports of antisemitic incidents on campus and learned from students that rhetoric directed at other students on Wednesday was either antisemitic in nature or otherwise inappropriate and hostile.
I do not accept the suggestion made by some that my decision was tantamount to shutting down speech. Our response was firmly focused on protecting the safety and right of free expression for all members of our community. We have long-agreed-upon time, place, and manner restrictions to ensure the content-neutral protection of free speech.
I also do not accept that my decision demonstrated that I do not care about our students. I care about every one of them. One group’s speech rights cannot cancel those of another group. In addition, we have obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to ensure our environment is free from harassment and discrimination.
Our community has held many peaceful vigils, events, marches, and demonstrations. The dynamic we faced last week was different. Students refused to move their demonstration to another location, did not accept our offer to meet, and rejected requests from Student Affairs staff to follow university policies. It created an untenable situation that could not be allowed to continue.
I also must respond to the questions that arose about our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) team and its role in last week’s demonstrations and arrests. To my dismay, despite repeated calls for civility from the senate’s leadership, there were outrageous personal attacks on both ERM and its leader, Lawrence Zacarese.
I created ERM three years ago to ensure a safe, secure campus of more than 50,000 students, staff, faculty, patients and visitors. ERM includes: Emergency Management & Business Continuity, Environmental Health and Safety, and University Police, among other units that have been vital to the smooth operations of this campus for many years. You might be surprised by what our dedicated colleagues do on a given day. For example, this academic year, ERM, working alongside our CARE team, has effectively responded to numerous mental health crises, performed more than 125 laboratory inspections, coordinated the major flood response and recovery at Frey Hall, advised staff and faculty on safety concerns related to international travel and is prepared to assist in case of emergencies, and kept numerous unauthorized weapons out of our hospital through the screening of more than 62,000 visitors at Stony Brook University Hospital. All of these functions create a safer environment for you and our entire Stony Brook community.
I want to thank many of you who have reached out to support our recent decisions and
actions. I am as inspired as ever to continue the extraordinary progress we have made
at this great university and look forward now to welcoming our graduates and their
families in celebration of their dedication, commitment and hard work.
Maurie McInnis
President