If Emory University hadn’t called in police to break up a pro-Palestinian protest on campus two years ago, students and staff would have been subjected to a severe safety risk “likely involving weapons and incendiary devices,” according to the Atlanta private school.
In a court filing last week, Emory argues it had “no choice” but to request assistance from the Atlanta Police Department during an April 25, 2024, protest, a controversial decision that led to the arrests of two dozen people, including three professors who eventually had their charges dismissed. The trio sued the school last month, claiming that by asking APD and Georgia State Police to end the demonstration, Emory violated its own policies and suppressed free speech.
The university responded with two filings last Thursday: a motion to strike and a motion to dismiss. Both ask the court to throw out the case, arguing the lawsuit violates Emory’s “right to petition the government for help in the face of an imminent safety threat.”
“From the outset, the situation presented a serious and immediate risk to the safety of the campus community,” read the university’s filings. They say the encampment was initiated by the “Stop Cop City” movement, which Emory describes as “an outside group with a documented history of violence, arson, intimidation, and attacks on law enforcement and institutions.”
Credit: AJC
The motion to strike offers some new details from the university. It says the morning of the demonstration, an Emory groundskeeper reported two dozen masked individuals arriving in vans, walking to the campus quad, taking down caution tape and setting up tents. When the Emory Police Department asked if they were affiliated with the school, the group “repeatedly refused to identify themselves and pushed past the officers.” Two more vans arrived, and its masked occupants — carrying coolers, tents and propane tanks — also refused to identify themselves, according to the filing.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Some carried banners reading, “Stop Cop City”, a reference to the movement opposing the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Emory police found that message “particularly concerning” because it, along with “various other anarchist symbols,” had been spray-painted on some university buildings days before, the university said in court documents. That act of vandalism also included a manifesto plastered on an administrative building, Emory said.
The filing pulls several quotes from the manifesto, including, “[w]hatever violence they throw at us, we must throw back ten-fold.”
Considering those circumstances, according to the filing, “Emory had no real choice but to call outside law enforcement to disperse the encampment for the protection of its community.”
Without offering names, it says the encampment’s leaders included convicted felons, one of whom was arrested with knives on campus. It also connects the encampment to an online post — dated two weeks after the demonstration — which “published instructions for constructing incendiary devices in tents.”
While the complaint says the professors were arrested for speaking out after witnessing police “violently assaulting their students,” the motion to strike accuses them of “interfering with law enforcement’s activities despite warnings.”
Their actions “endangered” campus and police, according to the filing, which also states that Emory “did not (and cannot) control outside law enforcement.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Critics of the school’s decision have described the protest as peaceful and Emory’s response as heavy-handed. The April complaint filed by the professors says alleged safety concerns were an excuse to summon outside police.
“Emory’s plan before the protest started was that if there was any tent placed on the quad, they would call the police immediately, all policies be damned,” reads the lawsuit.
By filing a motion to strike as well as a motion to dismiss, Emory is effectively making two attempts to get the case thrown out.
Zack Greenamyre, an attorney representing the professors, called Emory’s motion to strike “a bit rich.” That motion cites Georgia’s anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) statute, which aims to protect Georgians from frivolous lawsuits over free speech or their right of petition.
“The notion that Emory – a mega billion dollar institution and one of the state’s largest private employers – is intimidated by three professors seeking accountability is surprising,” Greenamyre said in an email. “And the idea that Emory has a free speech right to break contracts, ignore its own policies, and proceed with meritless prosecutions against its own people is incorrect.”
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