Emory University, one of the nation's wealthiest private institutions, is being sued by three tenured professors who say they were wrongfully arrested when campus police shut down an Israel-Gaza protest encampment in 2024. The lawsuit marks the latest chapter in a contentious period that has also seen student outcry over the university's handling of racist communications and surveillance camera deployment.
The civil complaint alleges that university administrators called Atlanta police and state troopers to campus and dismantled the protest gathering with force, including rubber bullets and tear gas, less than an hour after it began. The professors claim the school violated its own stated policy on open expression.
Noel McAfee, chair of the philosophy department and one of the three plaintiffs, frames the incidents as symptoms of a broader national trend. "This is mostly at public universities, but is creeping into private ones," she said, describing "a very dark, authoritarian turn happening around the country."
McAfee hopes the lawsuit will deter Emory from calling police on future campus protesters and draw attention to what she sees as unresolved harm. "The trauma of that day, the violence of it, are so massive and so disruptive," she said. "The administration has taken no ownership for what they did, and provided no apology."
The university's response to racist misconduct has fueled separate complaints from students and faculty. In April, Emory law school expelled a student identified as Milano Wayne after months of social media posts and emails containing racial slurs, misogynistic language, and references to harming Black people. The expulsion followed a seven-month investigation period during which Wayne was permitted to attend classes remotely.
Law school student Kylie Doyle, past president of the Student Bar Association, highlighted the disparity in institutional urgency. "When the university had students and faculty protests on campus, they were immediately arrested and shot with rubber bullets and tear gas," Doyle said. "But when a student talks about Black people this way, it takes months for the school to respond."
During an April meeting with law school dean Richard Freer, students described the administrator as voicing concerns about the current political climate and worry that Emory could become a target. Greear Webb, a member of the Black Law Students Association, said the dean appeared hesitant about disciplinary action and that Wayne's extended enrollment while under investigation sent the wrong signal. "It seemed like they were giving privileges to someone with racist, violent ideologies," Webb said.
Students have since demanded revisions to the code of conduct to explicitly address hate speech and threats, along with a formal university apology acknowledging the impact on Black, women, and LGBTQ+ students.
A third source of campus friction involves Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company whose license plate reader cameras are installed on Emory's grounds. A coalition called DeFlock Emory gathered more than 1,000 student and faculty signatures opposing the cameras, citing lack of transparency and the risk that data could be shared with federal immigration authorities. In an April editorial in the student newspaper, the group warned of "mass mobilization" if the school did not respond to their demands for removal.
Emory did not directly address the students' and faculty's requests for accountability. A university spokesperson said the lawsuit is "without merit" and the school "acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm." The university condemned the expelled student's language and said it is reviewing how data from surveillance cameras is shared.
Emil Keme, an Indigenous K'iche' Maya scholar and another plaintiff in the protest lawsuit, said the aggressive police response contradicted the university's advertised values. "It went against the principles the school defends: search for knowledge, dialogue and so on," he said. "Since then, students are afraid to protest. This ties into what's happening nationally. It's a bleak climate."
McAfee echoed the concern that students now calculate the personal cost of activism. "Students have to weigh whether it's safe to demonstrate about something they believe in," she said. One student told her: "I don't want to go to jail. I want to go to med school."
Stefano Harvey, a professor at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany, who has studied higher education in the United States, suggested that universities have grown emboldened under political pressure to abandon their stated missions. "Universities are selling study, learning and community," he said. "But then people have to be disabused of these ideas. It's a very sobering moment."
Author James Rodriguez: "Emory's pattern of swift police action on protesters but months of deliberation on racist threats exposes how quickly institutional values collapse under pressure."
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