Examples of Disruptive and Nondisruptive Protest

To clarify the policy prohibiting campus disruption, the university has compiled a non-exclusive list of examples of protest activities affecting classrooms, lectures, and public events that would be allowed or disallowed under the 1968 Campus Disruption Policy. 

Permissible forms of protest include:

1. Engaging in activities during time periods or in physical spaces that are external to the event and do not impede access to or disrupt the event;
2. Organizing a counter event in a different room, holding a rally in an external space (that does not impede access), issuing pre- or post-event statements, passing resolutions, picketing, carrying signs or distributing flyers to express counterviews, where otherwise permitted by university policy;
3. Engaging in expressions of protest at the event that do not disrupt the event or impede the access or participation of others, such as silently turning one’s back on the speaker;
4. Holding signs, gesturing, and standing without interfering with any audience member’s ability to view or hear the speaker and in compliance with posted conditions for the event;
5. Participating in interactive components of the event, such as question-and-answer periods, in ways that are consistent with and do not disrupt the event format.

Impermissible disruptions are activities that prevent or disrupt the speaker’s ability to speak or the audience’s ability to see or hear the speaker, or that impede the effective carrying out of a university function or approved activity, such as course sessions, lectures, meetings, interviews, ceremonies, or public events, and the conduct of university operations.  These impermissible disruptions include but are not limited to:

1. Speech or conduct that is reasonably interpreted as threatening physical harm to the speakers or any member of the audience, or inciting conduct that is likely to result in physical harm;
2. Preventing an invited speaker from speaking or being heard through such means as heckling, interrupting, shouting, or otherwise making noise;
3. Disregarding time limits or other event guidelines in ways that prevent speakers or other attendees from participating;
4. Standing, gesturing, or otherwise engaging in conduct blocking the views of attendees attempting to see the speaker;
5. Making loud noise inside or outside the event space in a manner that interferes with the speaker’s ability to be heard and with others’ opportunity to listen;
6. Generating noise that disrupts or interferes with other classes or other university activities;
7. Sitting in or otherwise occupying a building in a way that blocks access or otherwise interferes with university events or operations; blocking ingress and egress to buildings or interfering with pedestrian or vehicular traffic;
8. Trespassing or otherwise remaining in a space when told to leave by a university official or public safety officer, or remaining in spaces after hours when otherwise officially closed;
9. Taking actions that force a change to the planned event format that inhibits the effective carrying out of the event.