EDITORIAL: Protesting and Protesters

FROM WALKING WITH signs in protest of the killing of Aura Rosser by a city police officer around City Council members mid-meeting as the elected officials sat in their chairs, to rushing U-M Regents shortly after that group’s April meeting began, protesting is alive and well. The April protest by BAMN, which shut down the U-M Regents’ meeting, involved a group of student protesters pushing around barriers (tables) set up to separate U-M President Schlissel and Regents from the public. The BAMN protesters then came face-to-face with U-M police officers who pushed back. Eventually, eight protesters were taken into custody.

The Mar. 2015 Ann Arbor City Council protest involved non-violent action and chanting coupled with walking around the City Council table, protest signs hoisted high. Likewise, police intervened and threatened those protesters with arrest. Mayor Taylor subsequently supported spending $140,000 to reconfigure the meeting room’s seating arrangements to improve safety.

Mayor Taylor needs a refresher course in history: Non-violent protest, as a rule, threatens only the safety of protesters, who, history teaches, have been killed, beaten, arrested without cause and intimidated.  Journalists have repeatedly been illegally detained for covering non-violent protests. BAMN protesters, chose, instead, to use tactics whose methods can only be interpreted as meant to intimidate. Prosecutor Brian Mackie is now faced with whether to charge the students. He should not. Instead, the students should be dealt with by U-M’s disciplinary system and punishment meted out by university officials.