An academic community, where people assemble to inquire, to learn,
to teach, and to reason together, must be protected for those purposes.
While all members of the community are encouraged to register their
dissent from any decision on any issue and to demonstrate that dissent
by orderly means, and while the university commits itself to a
continual examination of its policies and practices to ensure that
causes of disruption are eliminated, the university cannot tolerate
demonstrations that unduly interfere with the freedom of other members
of the academic community.
With this in mind, the following
administrative procedures have been formulated to guide the
implementation of university policy:
1. The president of
the university and the university vice president for academic affairs
will have the authority throughout the university to declare a
particular activity to be disruptive. In the two geographic areas of
Camden and Newark, the respective provost will have the same authority.
In New Brunswick/Piscataway, the senior vice president and treasurer
will have the same authority.
2. Broadly defined, a
disruption is any action that significantly or substantially interferes
with the rights of members of the academic community to go about their
normal business or that otherwise unreasonably interrupts the
activities of the university.
3. A statement will be
read by the appropriate officers as specified in (1) or by such
officers as they may designate for the purpose of such reading and will
constitute the official warning that the activity is in violation of
university policy, that it must cease within a specified time limit,
and where appropriate, that no commitments made by university officials
will be honored if those commitments are made under duress.
4. If the activity continues beyond the specified time limit as
determined by the official in authority, the authorized officers as
specified in (1) will have the discretion to call upon the university
police to contain the disruption. Ordinarily, the president of the
university alone, or in his or her absence the university vice
president for academic affairs, will have the authority to decide that
civil authorities beyond the campus are to be called upon to contain
those disruptions that the university police are unable to handle. In
extraordinary circumstances, where neither the president nor the
university vice president for academic affairs is available to make
such a decision, the senior vice president and treasurer in New
Brunswick/Piscataway and the provosts on the Camden and Newark campuses
have the same authority.
5. The deans of students are
the chief representatives of the deans of the colleges in all matters
of student life. Members of the university community who are aware of
potentially disruptive situations are to report this to the deans of
students on their respective campuses. In a disruption, the deans of
students and their staff members have a twofold responsibility: to
protect against personal injury and to aid in providing for the order
of the university. In the latter case, the deans of students, as well
as other university personnel, may be called upon to coordinate or
assist members of the academic community in ending the disruption,
directing it to legitimate channels for solution, or identifying those
who have violated the rights of others.