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ATLANTA — <\/span>Three professors at Atlanta’s Emory University filed a lawsuit Thursday over their arrests during a 2024 campus protest<\/a> over the Israel-Hamas war, saying the university broke its own free speech policies<\/a> when it called in police and state troopers to aggressively disband the protest, making 28 arrests.<\/p>\n \u201cThe judicial system would find that Emory failed to protect its students, to protect its staff, to protect the educational mission of the university,\u201d said philosophy Professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs. \u201cSo this isn\u2019t just about people\u2019s individual rights. It\u2019s our educational mission to train people in free and critical inquiry, to be able to learn how to engage with others, to be fearless.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura Diamond, a spokesperson for Emory, said the university believes \u201cthis lawsuit is without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEmory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,\u201d Diamond said in a statement. \u201cWe regret this issue is being litigated but we have confidence in the legal process.\u201d<\/p>\n The suit is just one example of how the nationwide wave of protests<\/a> continues to reverberate on elite campuses. There are many examples of lawsuits against universities by students and faculty who say they were discriminated against because of the protests. But the Emory suit is unusual. McAfee, English and indigenous studies Professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and economics Professor Caroline Fohlin all remain tenured faculty members and none were convicted of any charges.<\/p>\n The civil lawsuit in DeKalb County State Court demands that the private university repay money the three spent defending themselves against misdemeanor charges that were later dismissed, along with punitive damages. McAfee said she’s suing her employer \u201cto try to get them to be accountable and to change.\u201d<\/p>\n All three say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when some students and others set up tents on the university’s main quad to protest the war. They say Emory broke its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers without seeking alternatives. <\/p>\n McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after she said she yelled \u201cStop!\u201d at an officer roughly arresting a protester. Del Valle-Escalante said he was trying to help an older woman when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Fohlin said that when she protested against officers pinning a protester to the ground, she herself was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spine injury. Fohlin was charged with misdemeanor battery of an officer.<\/p>\n Emory claimed that day that those arrested were outsiders who trespassed on school property. But 20 of the 28 people arrested were affiliated with the university. The professors said that after their arrests, they were targeted by threats and harassment, part of a pushback by conservatives who said universities were failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism<\/a> and allowing lawlessness.<\/p>\n Nationwide, advocates say there is a \u201cPalestine exception\u201d in which universities are willing to curb pro-Palestinian speech and protest. Palestine Legal, a legal aid group supporting such speech, said Tuesday that it received 300% more legal requests in 2025 than its annual average before 2023, mostly from college students and faculty.<\/p>\n McAfee served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest. The body makes policy recommendations and had helped draft the university\u2019s open expression policy. She said she asked then-President Gregory Fenves in fall 2024 why Emory police weren\u2019t dropping the charges against her and others. McAfee said Fenves told her that he wanted \u201cto see justice.\u201d The open expression policy was revised after 2024 to clearly prohibit tents, camping, occupations of university buildings and demonstrations between midnight and 7 a.m.<\/p>\n Whatever the policy, McAfee said, students are afraid to protest at Emory, saying the university has turned its back on what Atlanta Civil Rights icon John Lewis called \u201cgood trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStudents know right now that any trouble is not going to be good trouble at Emory, that they could get arrested,” she said. \u201dSo students are afraid.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n