The following is a statement from UNC Charlotte regarding the recent protests on campus:
UNC Charlotte fully embraces the right to free speech, and has established reasonable time, place, and manner limitations to ensure that right can be enjoyed equally by all of our students, faculty, and staff. However, recent protest activities by a small group of individuals – many of whom are not members of the UNC Charlotte community – present a pattern of willful disregard for these boundaries.
Over the past several days, an encampment on UNC Charlotte’s campus has been marked by escalating violations of law and policy, including the erection of unauthorized structures, defacement of University property, and the disruption of academic activities and final exams.
Despite our earnest attempts to foster an environment where dissent can be voiced without impeding the rights of others, these repeated violations of law and policy necessitated the dispersal of the protestors’ encampment by UNC Charlotte Police.
In the aftermath of the dispersal, various concerning items were discovered, including knives, box cutters, a collection of baseball-sized rocks, and a mattress that was used to collect and store feces.
Even after the removal of the encampment and associated items, the protestors persisted in disregarding policy-defined boundaries. Despite being offered a dedicated space for their protest activities, they chose to march across campus during final exams, using megaphones near academic buildings and impeding traffic on public streets, without regard to any disruption they caused. Some of the participants in the May 7 protest were individuals who had been trespassed from campus.
The University will always uphold free speech regardless of the viewpoint being expressed. There are thousands of members of the UNC Charlotte community with diverse and deeply held views about the issues the protestors purport to advance. Our community should be able to hold and express those views without facing intimidation, disruption, and exclusion from the campus where they work, learn, and live. UNC Charlotte will continue to take all necessary steps to preserve the rights of those not protesting to do their work and pursue their education.
