Exclusive: Leaked UMass Amherst document outlines surveillance policy for on-campus demonstrations
The school considered the specifics of a policy requiring students identify themselves to be information "a terrorist might find useful." Then they failed to correctly redact it.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Just give me credit and please email me if you do use this.
In September the University of Massachusetts Amherst released the report from the Campus Demonstration Policy Task Force. The task force also produced a document they believed “may be considered an internal document” titled “DRST Standard Operating Guidelines.”
The guidelines provide instructions for the Demonstration Task Force’s “Response and Safety Team” on how they should monitor protests and report the events to school administrators.
I filed a records request for this policy, and after months of appeals, UMass provided a heavily redacted version. But these redactions can be defeated simply by highlighting the text with a cursor.
For ease of readability I have changed the black bars to red in the document attached below, but you can also grab the unaltered version from the Internet Archive.
If you have information about the Demonstration Task Force or free speech on college campuses, please contact me using a non-work device at jon.gerhardson@proton.me or on Signal messenger at jongerhardson.69
Christine Wilda, Associate Chancellor for Compliance was particularly adamant against releasing this document, telling the Supervisor of Records in a petition:
Does your office analyze appeals in a vacuum - is your office allowed to take notice of local and national events that garner widespread publicity and news coverage? Please engage an internet search engine and look for University incidents last Spring regarding campus protests or events that occurred on both local and national levels.
Last April the of Federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the University of Massachusetts Amherst in response to a complaint that alleges that the school took months to address the harassment of Palestinian and Arab students. [The Intercept]
A demonstration against the war in Gaza on May 7, 2024 led to the arrest of 130 protesters after hundreds of Massachusetts State Police violently disbanded an ‘encampment’. [The Shoestring]
At present, over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 18,000 children since Isreal began its assualt following the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. [Al Jazeera]
The document instructs the school’s Demonstration Response and Safety Team to “be present at demonstrations or protests,” identify leaders of activist groups, and “document any disruptive activities in the most accurate way possible.”
It also instructs the safety team to call the police if protestors refuse to identify themselves as students.
But even students who identify themselves and cooperate with the task force might find themselves in disciplinary trouble. Although the scripts given to the task force to read to protesters follow a sort of ‘three strikes’ policy, any percieved infractions are cause for a conduct referral:
The DRST Team Leader will submit the DRST Incident Report to the DRST and complete the Student Conduct Referral for any demonstration that receives Notice #1, regardless of whether or not the dangerous/disruptive behavior ceases after Notice #1 is issued.
Redactions made by the University were justified under exemption (n) of the public records law, which is reserved for information that is likely to jeprodize public safety, or “be useful to a terrorist.”