In today’s Academic Senate session, the body voted to strongly condemn the Chancellor’s Office’s interim Time, Place, Manner (TPM) policy which places wide-reaching restrictions on activities such as the use of camping equipment on campus grounds, wearing face-coverings, create barricades, displace campus property, occupying buildings, or restricting others’ movement. 

The Senate argues in the rationale of today’s passed resolution that this new TPM policy “incorporates chilling restrictions on free speech and academic freedom on CSU campuses.”

UEPC Chair and Senator Mechelle Perea-Ryan introduced this resolution to the Senate floor, arguing that the interim TPM policy inhibits the academic and political freedoms of both students and faculty.

“What is clear is that it was cobbled together without consultation and on short notice, hence the word interim,” Perea-Ryan said.

This Sense of the Senate resolution directs the body’s ASCSU representatives—Senators Dana Nakano and Steven Filling—to raise the issue of this interim policy’s content and investigate its development, and then to widely publicize the results of that investigation.

CFA Chapter President and Senator Dave Colnic spoke in favor of this resolution, arguing that it targets specific groups of students, such as immunocompromised students who would be targeted for wearing masks during protests. 

Stakes with signs on them are also being targeted as an erroneous interpretation of what qualifies as “camping equipment”, according to Colnic, which he says are essential to any effective organized protest. 

“It undermines the student experience and engagement, is what I really think it does,” Colnic said in a statement after the Senate meeting.

In a comment after the meeting, Colnic also mentioned this policy had already been used to target two CSU students, including one who was not even present at the protest they were accused of violating the policy at, but, according to the Senator, was a visible activist figure who they elected to target.

Colnic argues that, while in both cases the bodies that reviewed these cases ruled in favor of the students and prevented academic discipline, these cases show that the CSU is willing to use the new policy to bully and intimidate student activists.

Senator Steven Filling encouraged the body to vote in favor of this resolution, saying that the passing of this resolution would allow both him and Senate Dana Nakano to speak much more forcefully about the interim TPM policy at the next ASCSU meeting. 

The Senate moved to vote to waive the rules in order to move the resolution to a second reading, as the body found the item was urgent to vote on. The vote to waive the rules passed with 40 for yes, 1 for no, and 2 abstaining. It then moved to a second reading where it was voted on as effective policy and was passed.