Joint Statements on 2024 Campus Protests
In March 2024, the MLA Executive Council sent a letter to MLA members affirming the organization’s unwavering support of academic freedom and of members’ right to protest.
In May 2024, the Council voted to sign on to statements by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the American Historical Association (AHA).
American Council of Learned Societies Statement
As of 16 May, six ACLS member societies and institutions have signed the statement. View the original statement and sign on as an individual supporter.
Published 10 May 2024
Since its founding in 1919, the American Council of Learned Societies has defended the values and principles underpinning the conditions for producing and sharing humanistic knowledge. Study and inquiry cannot be pursued in a state of fear.
In recent weeks, university administrators around the country have responded to student protests on their campuses by calling on local and state police forces to evict peaceful protestors. Students engaging in their right to protest have been arrested, suspended, and otherwise punished. We deplore the excessively punitive attitude taken toward protesting students.
We understand that universities establish reasonable and content-neutral restrictions on the time, place, and manner of protests and gatherings. Such procedures should be enforced judiciously, avoiding escalation and the use of armed police whenever possible.
We reaffirm the right of professors and students to teach, as well as the right to learn. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are central to this endeavor. As a representative of a large and diverse community of scholars, we have no shared position on the issues at the heart of the student protests.
But we do believe that, while administrators have every right and duty to secure the safety of their campus communities, they cannot and should not shield students or others from the experience of hearing strongly-worded statements which might make them deeply uncomfortable. It is the nature of protest to be loud, sometimes discourteous, and contentious. But, as scholars, we believe that suppressing the expression of unpopular or uncomfortable ideas by students or faculty engaged in peaceful protest does not do justice to the values at the heart of the university.
We understand that we have hard work to do. As Aristotle said, “anybody can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way-that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” We urge our constituencies to engage in communication and cooperation to strengthen the conditions that foster knowledge and its dissemination—which helps make the world a safer and kinder place for all—with the hope that we can emerge from this present crisis wiser and with a deeper understanding of one another.
American Historical Association Statement
Approved by AHA Council, May 2024
The American Historical Association, three-fourths of whose members are either faculty, staff, or students at institutions of higher education, deplores recent decisions among college and university administrators to draw on local and state police forces to evict peaceful demonstrators. It is appropriate for universities to establish and enforce, through fair and transparent procedures, reasonable and content-neutral restrictions on the time, place, and manner of protests and other assemblies. These procedures should not, however, deprive students, faculty, and staff of their right to gather, speak, debate, and protest.
Historical thinking reminds us that the use of force to suppress peaceful public protest at institutions of higher education endangers students, faculty, and staff. This month marks the 54th anniversary of the killing of students by National Guard troops at Kent State University, and by local and state police at Jackson State College. Those terrible events, along with the infamous “Orangeburg Massacre” of 1968, teach us that the introduction of outside armed law enforcement, and even worse, military units, escalates tensions rather than leads to constructive resolution of disputes. The AHA urges everyone involved to learn from that history and turn away from the violent escalation we are now seeing on campuses.
The AHA also urges administrators to recognize the fundamental value of peaceful protest on college and university campuses. We understand that administrators must do their utmost to ensure the safety of members of their campus communities. We also understand that loud and strongly worded differences of opinion on important, sometimes existential, issues can create a deeply uncomfortable, even disturbing environment for some community members. But as historians we emphasize that encountering ideas that might make us uncomfortable is central to the educational process. Suppressing the expression of those ideas by community members engaged in peaceful protest doesn’t make our campuses safer. It makes them weaker, and more dangerous places to be.
We understand that higher education leadership must make tough decisions. But “tough” does not and should not necessarily imply the use of force; nor does it mean banning from campus members of our communities who peacefully oppose institutional policies. It means making the often difficult decisions required to build and maintain communities committed to academic freedom and inquiry.
The following organizations have signed on to this statement:
African American Intellectual History Society
American Association for Italian Studies
American Association of Geographers
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
American Society for Environmental History
American Society for Theatre Research
American Association for the History of Medicine
American Sociological Association
Association for Asian Studies
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Berkshire Conference of Women Historians
California Scholars for Academic Freedom
College Art Association
Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History
Dance Studies Association
Disability History Association
Executive Committee of Czechoslovak Studies Association
Historians for Peace and Democracy
International Labor and Working-Class History
Labor and Working-Class History Association
Linguistic Society of America
Medieval Academy of America
Modern Language Association
National Council for the Social Studies
National Council on Public History
North American Conference on British Studies
Network of Concerned Historians
New England Historical Association
Oral History Association
PEN America
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Shakespeare Association of America
Sixteenth Century Society
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Society for French Historical Studies
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Society for the History of Children and Youth
Society for US Intellectual History
Southern Association for Women Historians
Southern Historical Association