A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and faculty
Clifton Crais, a history professor, was walking to class at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, outside Atlanta, on Thursday shortly before 10am when several students rushed up to him.
“Please, please contact president Fenves,” they begged, referring to the university president, Gregory Fenves. “Ask him to not call the police.” Several dozen protesters seeking the university’s divestment from Israel and opposing a $109m police training center colloquially known as “Cop City” had set up tents on the school’s grassy quad – the size of a football field – several hours before.
Crais had spent the last year working with fellow faculty members on a policy about when the school could bring police on campus; the students were asking the right person. That policy: police could come on campus “only under threat of bodily harm or property destruction”, he said in an interview.
The professor dashed off a one-line email on his phone to Fenves; Enku Gelaye, the dean of campus life; and Ravi Bellamkonda, the provost. “I do hope you will not summon the Atl police,” he wrote.
It was too late. Within minutes, dozens of Atlanta police officers and Georgia state troopers had arrested 28 people – 20 of whom were “Emory community members”, according to a statement from the school, including three faculty members and an unclear number of students from Emory and other Atlanta schools.
The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used against students, faculty and community members – at one of the few student protests in the south to date.
This singular set of circumstances was perhaps most grotesquely highlighted by the Georgia state representative Mike Collins, who posted Thursday afternoon on X: “Not sure what y’all are doing up north, but we don’t give them the time to encamp. Tazers set to stun!”
The Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, issued a statement saying: “College campuses … in Georgia … will never be a safe haven for those who promote terrorism and extremism that threatens the safety of students.”
Asked whether Kemp was referring to Emory students as terrorists, spokesperson Garrison Douglas said the governor was referring to participants in demonstrations at other campuses – and that “such activities will not be tolerated in Georgia”.
