atlanta — Three professors at Emory University in Atlanta filed a lawsuit Thursday over… Arrests during the 2024 campus protest Regarding the war between Israel and Hamas, saying that the League destroyed its war Freedom of expression policies When police and state forces were called in to forcefully disperse the protest, leading to the arrest of 28 people.
“The judicial system will find that Emory failed to protect its students, protect its employees, and protect the educational mission of the university,” said philosophy professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs. “So it’s not just about people’s individual rights. It’s our educational mission to train people to inquire freely and critically, to be able to learn how to relate to others, and to be courageous.”
Laura Diamond, a spokeswoman for Emory University, said the university believes “this lawsuit is without merit.”
“Emory is acting appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,” Diamond said in a statement. “We regret filing a lawsuit over this issue but we have confidence in the legal process.”
The lawsuit is just one example of how A wave of nationwide protests It still resonates at elite universities. There are many examples of lawsuits filed against universities by students and faculty who say they have been discriminated against because of protests. But Emory’s suit is unusual. McAfee, English and Indigenous Studies Professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante, and Economics Professor Carolyn Fullen all remain tenured faculty members and none have been convicted of any charges.
The civil lawsuit filed in DeKalb County state court asks the private university to repay the money the three spent defending themselves against misdemeanor charges that were later dismissed, along with punitive damages. McAfee said she is filing a lawsuit against her employer “to try to get them to take responsibility and change.”
The three say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when some students and others set up tents in the university’s main square to protest the war. They say Emory violated its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers without seeking alternatives.
McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after she said she shouted “Stop!” An officer roughly arrests a protester. Del Valle Escalante said he was trying to help an elderly woman when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. When she protested officers pinning a protester to the ground, Voehlen said, she was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spinal injury. Voehlin was charged with misdemeanor battery of an officer.
Emory claimed that day that those arrested were strangers trespassing on school property. But 20 of the 28 detainees belonged to the university. The professors said that after their arrest, they were subjected to threats and harassment, as part of a reaction from conservatives who said that universities failed to provide them with education. Protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitism And allow lawlessness.
Nationally, advocates say there is a “Palestine exception” where universities are willing to curb pro-Palestinian speech and protest. Palestine Legal, a legal aid group that supports such rhetoric, said Tuesday that it received 300% more legal applications in 2025 than the annual average before 2023, mostly from college students and faculty.
McAfee served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest. The body makes policy recommendations and helped shape the university’s open expression policy. She said she asked then-Chief Gregory Fenves in the fall of 2024 why Emory police had not dropped charges against her and others. McAfee said Fenves told her he wanted to “see justice.” The open expression policy has been revised after 2024 to explicitly prohibit tents, camping, occupation of university buildings, and demonstrations between midnight and 7 a.m.
Whatever the politics, 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 “good trouble.”
“Students now know that any problem is not a good problem at Emory, and that they can get arrested,” she said. “So the students are afraid.”