A previous version of this article cited a version of the 2003 BOG bylaws and said the president, chair and vice chair of the Board sets the agenda 14 days before the meeting. The updated 2021 bylaws state in section 1.1.3 that the president, chair and vice chair of the Board set the agenda within five days of the meeting. 

More than 100 faculty and staff at Wayne State University signed an open letter to the WSU Board of Governors in support of student protesters physically removed from the April 26 Board of Governors meeting by the WSU Police Department.

In November, WSU’s Student Senate passed a resolution asking WSU to Boycott, Divest and Sanction companies with ties to Israel, including Boeing, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin and Northop Grumman, according to reporting from WSU’s student newspaper The South End. 

WSU President Kimberly Andrews Espy released a response to the Senate, but the BOG never addressed it in a meeting.

“The BOG’s, president’s and university leaders’ role is not to attempt to reconcile or adjudicate differing views among our constituents or on campus,” the response read. “Rather, our responsibility is to assist and encourage the free flow of ideas, create discussion and enhance the learning of all. Furthermore, we hold the belief that certain investment decisions, and therefore a particular investment philosophy, may not be a dependably effective approach to influence political matters and also could abrogate our fiduciary responsibilities.”

WSU’s Students for Justice in Palestine and allies have been advocating for the resolution ever since. Twelve students spoke during public comment at the April 26 meeting, asking for the board to discuss the resolution.

There was about an hour of emotional and descriptive attestations to the violence that’s being perpetrated on Palestinians in Gaza. The students who were speaking, the vast majority of them, have family in Gaza who have either been killed, maimed or are currently under siege. The whole thing was very moving. – WSU Professor Layla Saatchi, Ph.D

WSU Professor Layla Saatchi, Ph.D., attended the meeting and signed the faculty and staff letter.

“There was about an hour of emotional and descriptive attestations to the violence that’s being perpetrated on Palestinians in Gaza,” Saatchi said. “The students who were speaking, the vast majority of them, have family in Gaza who have either been killed, maimed or are currently under siege. The whole thing was very moving.” 

Saatchi said after public comment the meeting continued with business as usual.

“It’s consistent with their rules,” she said. “They (BOG) don’t have to say anything, (but) the students were under the impression that they would put the divestment resolution to a vote or they would vote on whether they should add it to their agenda. This is what prompted the students to link arms and start chanting… about half of them were the students who had spoken during the public comments.”

According to section 1.1.3 of the BOG’s bylaws, the president, chair and vice chair set the agenda for board and standing committee meetings and any BOG member may request to add agenda items by written request at least five days ahead of the meeting. 

A university statement from Interim Senior Vice President for Business Affairs Bethany Gielczyk said protesters included students, faculty and others outside the WSU community.

“After transitioning to the business portion of the meeting, a group of protesters inside the crowded room locked their arms and announced, via a megaphone, that they were taking control of the meeting,” the statement read. “Their actions halted the meeting and prevented it from continuing. At the same time, additional protesters locked their arms outside the room to block the only two exits. For a short time, no one was able to leave the room. Recognizing a real threat to the safety of everyone there, WSUPD approached the protesters, identified themselves as police, asked the protesters to leave and ultimately removed them from the room.” 

Saatchi said the exits were open.

“The room was packed,” she said. “It was so busy in there, and it was overflowing out into the hallway. (The university statement) said that the exits were blocked, and that just isn’t true. It’s a blatant lie. The exits were wide open and anybody could come and go, and people were coming and going, even during the demonstration, people were coming and going… There was no reason, none whatsoever, to violently push and shove and drag the students out of the room.” 

Police arrested one protester, a student at Oakland Community College.

Officers at the meeting wore plainclothes, Saatchi said. Videos confirm it.

“The students would not have recognized them as police officers on duty because they were in plainclothes,” she said. “The whole thing escalated entirely because of the mismanagement of WSUPD and the complicity, and I would guess support of, the administrators… The students themselves were loud,  and they were chanting. But there was no security risk.” 

The letter from faculty and staff ends by asking that President Espy and the Board of Governors “issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the students, protect academic freedom and commit to prevent police violence against students, faculty and community members in the future.”

Saatchi said she expected at least one person in a room full of university administrators to speak up against the removal of the students.

“All it would have taken (to respect the students) is for one of them (administrators) to have said, ‘let’s pause for a second,’” she said. “‘Let’s just stop. Let’s see what is going on. This is not okay.’ (Now) what they need is to give an apology to the students, and they need to give a clear indication of when or if they are going to put this to a vote.” 

This BOG meeting took place just over a week after WSU’s Student Senate passed a resolution asking the WSUPD to break ties with the Israeli government.

In 2019 WSU Chief of Police Anthony Holt visited Israel for a “seven-day training regimen” funded by the Israel Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, according to an article written by Holt in The Detroit Jewish News. 

Holt told The South End in April the Jewish Federation sent him and a group of Michigan police chiefs to Israel, and it was not about training.

“I really don’t do any more training,” Holt said. “Maybe 20 years ago I would have, but no, it was more a trip to Israel. We did not see any training with the armed forces or with the agency Mossad. We didn’t do any of that. We toured some towns in Israel. We went to the Old Town, went to the Jordan River. I think it was more or less just to see life in Israel at that time.”

Saatchi said students at WSU join students around the nation in facing police backlash for protesting at their universities.

“This seems to be a theme that’s going across the country that whenever there’s a demonstration, public safety is cited in a way (to end it),” she said. “I’m sure that there are public safety concerns in some instances, but I wanted to make clear that in this instance at WSU, public safety was not a concern. It was entirely a mismanagement by the board, by the administrators and by the police, and then they tried to spin it so that it was a safety concern to justify their mistakes. For the sake of the students, I really want to set the record straight as much as possible.”