Yesterday afternoon, the Emory College of Arts and Sciences’ (ECAS) College Senate voted to send out an electronic ballot early next week to all ECAS faculty to vote on whether they still have confidence in University President Gregory Fenves to continue his duties, according to College Senate President-elect and Philosophy Department Chair Noëlle McAfee. Even if the senate votes for “no confidence,” it is up to the Emory Board of Trustees to decide whether they will remove Fenves.
According to an email sent to members and students of the sociology department, over 370 faculty members attended the meeting, including 170 in person and others over Zoom. The email said that the vote will take place electronically to provide “anonymity to non-tenured faculty.”
McAfee, who was detained at the pro-Palestinian protest on Thursday, said the faculty have been “very concerned” about Fenves’ response toward free expression since last April, when the Emory Police Department ended a student-led protest against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known as Cop City. She also said that Fenves’ past emails have polarized the student body.
“Our primary concern is about the president, Emory’s president, calling in police trying to delegitimize any dissent, saying it was outside agitators, just completely trying to make disappear the fact that it was many students,” McAfee said.
The motion of no confidence states that Thursday’s events were “unprecedented” in the University’s history.
The College Senate’s motion would condemn the Emory administration’s decision to call the police, use force and violence and arrest students and faculty. Additionally, the senate “abhors the false statements” by Fenves and the administration.
Associate Professor of Philosophy Dilek Huseyinzadegan said she saw law enforcement dispersing the protests right after police detained McAfee. She said she then saw one of her students who had been detained yelling out her mother’s phone number.
“My students and colleagues pushed me out of harm's way while another police officer said, ‘Don't worry, they are rubber bullets in there,’” Huseyinzadegan said.
Huseyinzadegan went on to say that she does not feel physically safe on campus and that she plans to teach classes online for the rest of the semester and is still considering whether she will return to campus in the fall.
Department of Anesthesiology Associate Professor Joel Zivot (17G, 22L) said that he was not sure police broke any laws on Thursday, saying that it was the University’s prerogative to control the Quad.
“Rubber bullets, although they're upsetting, they're not real bullets,” Zivot said. “Tear gas is also not meant to kill. It’s meant to control the crowd.”
Zivot said that as a Jewish faculty member, he and many Jewish students do not feel safe on campus. He added that the senate meeting convened “very rapidly” and that college faculty need more information.
Emory Writing Program Assistant Teaching Professor Gregory Palermo said he felt “compelled” to speak at the meeting after Fenves “double[d] down on this narrative that outside protesters overtook our Quad.” He said the police officers disrupted Emory’s normal function, not the protestors on the Quad.
After discussion, Professor of History and Director of Graduate Admissions Clifton Crais introduced the “Motion of No Confidence and Demand for Redress.” He said that Emory could have been “a model of how a university has navigated these difficult times.”
“The events of April 25, 2024 are unprecedented in the history of Emory College and the University,” Crais said. “A peaceful demonstration was met by Emory police and a large contingent of heavily armed police and Georgia State Patrol officers, who used chemical agents, electrical shocks and other metrics and arrested multiple ECAS students, ECAS faculty and others.”
Crais said that the protestors were not violent and that there was no disruption of academic activities.
“What was disruptive, profoundly so, was the conduct of the University administration that violated multiple college and University policies and is an affront to everything we stand for,” Crais said.
Eva Roytburg (25C) contributed to reporting.
