ACTA Releases Guide for Managing Campus Protests, Encampments

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has released a new trustee guide intended to help higher education leadership proactively prepare for potential campus disruptions, such as those linked to antiwar protests last spring.

Dr. Michael Poliakoff“The free exchange of ideas, which is the very lifeblood of education and progress, vanishes when anomie and disorder seize the campus,” said Dr. Michael Poliakoff, president and CEO of ACTA, an independent, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

The 15-page guide, titled An Equal Space for All: A Trustee Guide to Preventing Encampments and Occupations on Campus, calls on college governing boards to enact clear, content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions so that students and faculty understand in advance which activities are acceptable and which are not. It provides actions leadership could take toward ensuring student and faculty protests are peaceful and transpire in ways that preserves freedom of speech and assembly campus-wide.

ACTA recommends that governing boards ensure penalties for violating restrictions are clear and enforced consistently, up to and including expulsion for egregious violations. Its guide also advises that trustees adopt a policy of institutional neutrality, thus freeing administrators from having to make official statements on every controversy.

“This guide is a timely resource for trustees to help their chief executives handle exigent circumstances effectively — respecting everyone’s right to voice their opinions respectfully, while ensuring that the campus square remains a place where all members of the community feel welcome, no matter their perspective or background,” said ACTA Chief of Staff & Senior Vice President of Strategy Armand Alacbay.