The faculty council unanimously voted to approve a motion encouraging administrators to meet with student activists during an April 7 meeting after inviting a Students for Justice in Palestine leader to speak.
The motion came after SJP distributed flyers outside the meeting, leading a member to invite them in, said Max Herschman, the vice president of SJP. Because it was not provided to members at least a week before the meeting, they will need to vote again at their meeting Monday to finalize the motion’s approval.
“Faculty Council encourages administration to engage in an ongoing dialogue with student representatives and community members seeking to protect those targeted by visa revocations and threats related to immigration status,” the motion states, according to draft meeting minutes obtained by The Mass Media.
Though the faculty council’s motions are not binding, they signal the faculty’s stance on issues at the university to administration. It is uncommon for students to address the body.
Representatives of SJP, the Puerto Rican Student Association, Amnesty International and Undergraduate Student Government met April 29 with Vice Chancellor for Inclusive Excellence Calvin Hill and Assistant Vice Chancellor of Inclusive Excellence Steven Neville to discuss a potential meeting with the chancellor. “While its still in preliminary stages, it’s important that these conversations with admin are open and transparent,” SJP wrote in an Instagram post.
During the meeting, Herschman spoke about SJP’s open letter to university administrators regarding their response to the federal government’s revocation of students’ visas. “We want a sanctuary campus, and we want genuine protections from students. We want these things to be nipped in the bud before students get their visas revoked — before students are getting detained,” Herschman said in an interview. “We want them to actually make a statement and take a stance.”
“Because of the whole public school thing, it’s probably not likely that they can just straight up ban ICE from campus,” Herschman said. “But what we can do is prevent information sharing with ICE. We can prevent collaboration with ICE in any capacity, and we can create sanctuary spaces” where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not allowed in without a warrant.
According to guidance from Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, “If a reasonable expectation of privacy exists, the U.S. Constitution prohibits access without consent, a judicial warrant signed by a judge, or certain exigent circumstances that excuse the warrant requirement.” Attorney Harvey Silverglate told The Mass Media in March that the university would likely need to restrict access to a space, such as by requiring students, staff and faculty to swipe their IDs to enter, to keep ICE out.
Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said during a campus update meeting April 17 that, should ICE arrive on campus, he “will review the agent’s documentation and ensure the agent has a properly executed warrant signed by a federal judge.”
“If that’s not the case, that agent will be asked to leave campus,” Suárez-Orozco said.
Herschman also criticized the UMass Boston Police Department’s enforcement practices. Many of last month’s more than 1,500 immigration status terminations were due to minor traffic offenses. A Boston University student alleged in court filings that their status was revoked because of dropped traffic offenses. A student at MIT alleged that their status was revoked due to a dropped criminal charge.
“Our immediate goalpost is we would like to just have a meeting. We would like to meet with us, community representatives, and lawyers,” Herschman said. “I made this clear at the faculty council meeting, that we’re not going to have a meeting that’s just students and administration, because that’s an unfair game. That’s not a level playing field.”
