- Pro-Palestinian protesters banned from the University of North Carolina campus are seeking an injunction against the university.
- The protesters' lawyers filed a motion Thursday seeking a preliminary injunction that would reverse the bans.
- The case stems from the protests that involved an encampment at UNC in April 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters banned from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus are seeking an injunction against UNC. A court filing Thursday seeks to have the ban lifted.
Two UNC students, a Duke student and professor, and a Meredith student are all plaintiffs in the case arising from events last spring. They are working with lawyers from the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Emancipate NC, and Washington, DC-based Muslim Advocates.
“All Plaintiffs have been deeply concerned with ongoing violence against Palestinians in Gaza,” the protesters’ lawyers wrote. “Plaintiffs believe that this violence is deeply unjust and that the United States government has been complicit.”
“Last April, Plaintiffs — UNC Chapel Hill students and other concerned individuals — were engaged in political activity protected by the First Amendment,” the brief added. “On a grassy patch of a large, publicly accessible quad on UNC’s campus, Plaintiffs and approximately two-hundred others participated in a nonviolent, nondisruptive encampment to communicate their view that the United States had been complicit in genocide.”
Three of the five plaintiffs were arrested on April 30, 2024, when UNC police removed the encampment. One “suffered torn shoulder cartilage” and another “suffered a concussion” during the arrests, according to the court filing.
UNC banned four of the plaintiffs “from campus indefinitely, without prior notice and hearing,” the protesters’ lawyers argued.
“Three months later, Defendant UNC Chief of Police Brian James — the same official who ordered the arrests — upheld the bans after a cursory hearing,” the court filing added.
Criminal trespass charges were dismissed. Yet three of the plaintiffs “remain indefinitely banned from UNC’s campus. Access for a fourth “remains severely curtailed,” according to the court filing.
“These Plaintiffs now seek a preliminary injunction requiring Defendants to lift their bans from campus and refrain from banning them again without adequate process,” their lawyers wrote.
“Plaintiffs will likely succeed on their First Amendment prior restraint claims,” the court filing added. “Any prior restraint on expression bears ‘a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.’ Here, Plaintiffs were engaged in political activity in a public forum and wish to continue doing so. Defendants have banned that activity. Now, Plaintiffs’ only recourse is to seek reconsideration every two years from a single administrator, Defendant James, who has total discretion over the matter.”
“This expansive sanction advances no legitimate state interest, and even if it did, it burdens far more constitutionally protected activity than necessary,” the protesters’ lawyers argued.
“Plaintiffs will also likely succeed on their procedural due process claims,” the court filing continued. “Holding a hearing before the government infringes on a constitutionally protected interest is ‘the root requirement of the Due Process Clause.’”
“Only exceptional circumstances will justify a post-deprivation process, and that process must adequately protect the individual interests at stake. Here, Plaintiffs have fundamental liberty interests in gathering and speaking in public forums. Yet Defendants banished Plaintiffs with no meaningful notice or hearing, and the post-deprivation hearing was a perfunctory sham — Defendants did not identify any witnesses or other evidence against Plaintiffs specifically except for their trespass citations. Defendant James invoked ‘other safety and security concerns’ to justify his decisions, but never explained what those were,” the protesters’ lawyers argued.