When Emory University students started protesting on a Monday afternoon last April, the scene was calm. Their activism targeted a police-training facility planned for construction in an urban forest a few miles outside of downtown Atlanta. On Emory’s quad, a couple hundred students filtered in and out throughout the day; they sat in the grass, sang songs, and dyed shirts. Several faculty members who stopped by described it as “kumbaya.”
Then some of the students decided to camp out overnight. Tensions between students and administrators escalated. In the early morning hours, nearly a dozen Atlanta police officers showed up, and the students were threatened with arrest. Administrators said they shut down the event over concerns about campus safety. Students said calling in Atlanta police officers made them feel unsafe.