By The Associated PressPublished On 23 Apr 202623 Apr 2026Three professors at Atlanta’s Emory University in the United States have filed a lawsuit over their arrests during a 2024 campus protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.Their lawsuit on Thursday argued that the university broke its own free-speech policies when it called in police and state troopers to aggressively disband the protest, making 28 arrests.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“The judicial system would find that Emory failed to protect its students, to protect its staff, to protect the educational mission of the university,” said philosophy professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs.“So this isn’t just about people’s individual rights. It’s our educational mission to train people in free and critical inquiry, to be able to learn how to engage with others, to be fearless.”Laura Diamond, a spokesperson for Emory, responded that the university believes “this lawsuit is without merit”.“Emory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,” Diamond said in a statement. “We regret this issue is being litigated, but we have confidence in the legal process.”The suit is just one example of how the nationwide wave of protests from 2023 and 2024 continues to reverberate on elite campuses.There have been multiple instances where students and faculty have filed lawsuits against universities, arguing they were discriminated against because of the protests.But the Emory suit is unusual. McAfee and her fellow plaintiffs — English and Indigenous studies professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and economics professor Caroline Fohlin — all remain tenured faculty members. None were convicted of any charges.The civil lawsuit in DeKalb County State Court demands that the private university repay money the t …
