Queens College students, faculty, and staff returned from winter break to a new set of restrictions on the time, place, and manner for free speech on campus — resulting in protests, petitions, and the QC Academic Senate passing a motion demanding that the administration suspend the rules. As of the date of this article’s publication, the administration has yet to directly notify students of these policy changes.
“[Students] don’t leave their rights behind just because they set foot on campus. In fact, part of being in college should be finding your voice and understanding how important your voice can and should be,” said Erica Doran, QC Psychology professor and co-chair of the Queens Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Chapter, to The Knight News.
The Queens College Guidance Regarding Time, Place, and Manner Regulations now require on-campus demonstrations to be requested in advance, limit the location of demonstrations to a few specific areas and prohibit the use of noise amplifiers such as bullhorns or microphones, among other rules.
This selected list comes from a revised version of the Guidance, released in early February. The original guidelines were introduced in January and contained additional, more stringent requirements, including requiring on-campus protestors to remove face coverings upon the request of a Public Safety officer, prohibiting protests inside of buildings, and giving the college the ability to deem anyone not possessing a QC ID as trespassers.
“The interim time, leave and manner guidelines for the conduct of on-campus demonstrations were drafted in response to a City University of New York requirement of all its colleges in response to the recommendations made by former Chief Justice Jonathan Lippman in his recent review of antisemitism,” the QC Office of Communications and Marketing told The Knight News.
Lippman’s Report on Antisemitism and Discrimination at CUNY, published in September, was commissioned by Governor Kathy Hochul following the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7th, 2023 in effort to suggest improvements for CUNY’s policies on dealing with antisemitism. Such suggestions include building on the already established Henderson Rules, which have enacted time, place, and manner restrictions upon CUNY institutions since June 1969.
“While visiting various campuses, my team heard from students that they felt unsafe because they were forced to walk through active protests in order to attend classes or enter campus buildings,” Lippman writes in his report. “Strengthening CUNY’s rules around time, place, and manner restrictions to provide clarity and definitive parameters around protests of all kinds, and the application of the Henderson Rules, will help more people at CUNY feel safe.”
After drafting the guidelines in December, the QC administration shared them with the Personnel and Budget Committee and the Academic Senate for feedback, said the Office of Communications and Marketing. However, the message did not reach everyone.
“The administration did not send anything to the Chapter chairs or to the PSC,” said Doran. “Rather, we found out because a couple of our Executive Committee members [at the PSC] are also department chairs.”
In response, the PSC quickly took to organizing. On Friday, Jan. 31st, the union hosted a virtual teach-in over Zoom, informing the over 100 people in attendance of the new Guidance and its implications. By the following Monday, a crowd of roughly 100 people gathered in front of Kiely Hall to march through the administrative building and deliver a petition with over 500 signatures, opposing the new guidelines, to Stacey Romano, Director of the Office of the President at QC.
“The phrase in these guidelines that kills me the most is ‘approved demonstrations,’” said QC English professor and former PSC president Barbara Bowen during a speech at the event. “These guidelines, which are completely unnecessary because we already have the oppressive Henderson Rules, restrict us to filing for approval for a demonstration three days in advance.”
“What demonstration that ever objects to anything that the college administration might be doing is going to get their approval? The notion that a demonstration should be approved is absurd,” Bowen said.
While the revised guidelines implemented last month allow for “spontaneous demonstrations” to be requested less than three days in advance, they are still subject to the approval of the Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management.
“Colleges in general are going to have protests regardless. Doing everything you can to make it near-impossible for students to organize and exercise their first amendment right to free speech is kind of telling of you as an institution,” said Mimi Jubaed, a Sophomore majoring in Biology at QC who attended the demonstration.
On Thursday, Feb. 13th, Graduate Adviser in the French Language department and PSC Chapter Co-Chair Karen Sullivan proposed a resolution at the Academic Senate meeting requesting that the February guidelines be suspended, and “that the College continue to operate under existing State law regarding conduct, known as the Henderson rules.”
The motion passed with 36 votes in favor of the suspension, one in opposition, and two abstentions.
The Knight News reached out to QC prior to the revision of the Guidance for elaboration on the new rules, such as whether Public Safety officers were allowed to request the removal of religious headwear if it falls under the category of a ‘face covering’ and what other college officials, if any, have the power to enforce the Guidance.
The Office of Communication and Marketing responded by providing a copy of the revised Guidance — which no longer includes references to face coverings or ID — with an explanation as to how Judge Lippman’s report influenced CUNY’s decision to require new regulations. In this response, questions about why administration hasn’t informed students of new policies or what factors will lead to a demonstration being rejected were not addressed.
“As the title suggests, these rules pertain to ‘time, place, and manner,’ and not the substance of any constitutionally protected free speech. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that it is appropriate to impose restrictions on ‘time, place, and manner,’” said the Office of Communications & Marketing, though constitutionally protected freedoms were not mentioned in the questions submitted.
The Guidance, including where demonstrations are permitted, can currently be found on the Policies, Procedures & Reporting Misconduct page of QC’s website under the Academic Affairs section.
