Chancellor Wrighton’s Fear Mongering
BY GABRIEL RUBIN
The fire is coming, or so they tell us. Since August, the administration of Washington University in St. Louis has taken a bifurcated approach to the protest movement that has emerged in the wake of unarmed teenager Michael Brown’s killing. When the protesters were demonstrating mainly in the suburb of Ferguson itself, the university treated the crisis like it was happening in a foreign country. But as the movement grew and expanded throughout the St. Louis area, the response of the administration—communicated through Chancellor Mark Wrighton’s messages to the Washington U. community—became more alarmist and militarized, promising to maintain order through police control and emergency measures. With a grand jury decision now imminent, the university has definitively aligned itself with local power structures to cast the protest movement as an enemy invasion to be guarded against.
In August, as the university prepared to welcome students for fall semester, the chancellor sent out his first official message pertaining to the civil unrest. The text began with the obligatory mention of the ever-ambiguous “challenge[s] of historic proportions” facing the St. Louis area. Then came the university’s action plan: “Here at Washington University, we must do our part … by reflecting and better understanding each other, by convening important conversation, and by taking action.” The ellipsis is Wrighton’s, as if to imply that he had at least put in a few seconds of thought before deciding on that course of action. The university organized several panel discussions and a food drive, a response that made the “tragic events” in Ferguson seem like an overseas natural disaster. Later university actions would build upon this characterization of Ferguson residents and protesters as foreign Others.
University communication on the topic tapered off in September and October, though numerous university-sponsored student groups continued holding forums and discussions on Ferguson. There was no official university communication about the #FergusonOctober Weekend of Resistance, a series of coordinated actions and rallies around the St. Louis area that occurred from October 10th -13th.
In recent weeks, however, the university has been preparing intensely for possible unrest in the wake of a grand jury decision. Protests are no longer primarily located in Ferguson, but occur throughout St. Louis County. Clayton, the county seat, has seen a particular upsurge in protest activity, mainly around the Buzz Westfall Justice Center and the office of County Prosecutor Robert McCullough. Downtown Clayton is no more than a five minute drive from Washington University’s campus—indeed, the university’s main residential area, the South Forty, is located in Clayton.
On November 7th, Chancellor Wrighton again wrote to the university community. This time, the tone had shifted: the Ferguson protest movement no longer represented a foreign disturbance worthy of our curiosity, but an imminent threat that called for immediate militarization. Wrighton wrote, in vague, ominous terms, of the university’s preparations:
The current situation has given us an opportunity to double-check our procedures and protocols, and although we continue to hope for calm in our community, we have solid infrastructure in place to manage an emergency. Through the Washington University Police Department, we also have strong working relationships and open lines of communication with surrounding law enforcement organizations. Again, it is impossible to know what might occur, but we are taking every possible precaution to be prepared.
A WUPR editor saw those “working relationships” in action while visiting Washington U.’s West Campus. There, in the parking lot, several local police departments were staging riot and crowd-control drills. Rumors abound that campus buildings will have extra security guards on duty following the announcement from the grand jury, although WUPR was unable to confirm that this is indeed the university’s plan.
However, an email from the chancellor to parents of undergraduate students on November 18th confirms that special security measures can be activated at any time by the Washington U. Police Department. Wrighton said that he is prepared to “activate a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week Emergency Operations Center to manage any necessary response across all of our university functions.” The email also mentioned a bizarre and Orwellian way of reassuring parents that the university grounds remain peaceful: seven webcams will be mounted around campus so that parents can visually confirm that their worst and most irrational fears are not being realized. To absolve itself of any blame for student protesters, the administration advised students to “seriously consider all of the potential risks of participating in off-campus protests that could compromise their safety and well-being.”
Given Washington U.’s well-known lack of socioeconomic diversity, these responses should in no way come as a surprise. Much of the case made to parents of prospective freshmen consists of showing how safe Washington U.’s campus is. Tour guides never forget to mention that because of the university’s location between St. Louis city, Clayton, and University City, Washington U. students are “protected” by up to five different police forces (including WUPD and St. Louis County police). Never mind the fact that small, poorly-trained local forces are one of the main reasons for the situation in Ferguson in the first place. For well-off families, the fact that the South Forty is nestled within a neighborhood with high real estate values is a major selling point. So the fact that Clayton is now the epicenter of a world-famous protest movement, is, to say the least, disconcerting to people who value suburban law and order over freedom of assembly and protection from police brutality.
“Ferguson” as a place, as a movement, and as a harbinger of future events, long ago guaranteed its spot in history books. The world is watching now, and the world will continue to watch and debate these events for years to come. We have seen what happens when universities use police power to confront peaceful protests—at Berkeley in 1964, at Kent State in 1970, and at California-Davis in 2011. So far, not a single fatality or even serious injuries have occurred due to Ferguson protests, though area police have since killed two more black human beings. By setting up a police occupation of campus, the university is inviting violence and endangering its students. It will be scrutinized for its response for years to come.